If 


• 


"WiillSm  Francis  Hoeker 


^iii'i^i''*!  I 


1 


.A-^ 


The  Prairie  Schooner 


The  Prairie  Schooner 


By 


William  Francis  Hooker 


CHICAGO 

SAUL   BROTHERS 

1918 


Copyright,  1918 

By  SAUL  BROTHERS 

Chicago 


To  My  Wife 

MAMIE  TARBELL  HOOKER 

A  Pioneer  of  the 
Jim  River  (Dakota)  Valley 


CONTENTS. 

Page 
Introduction 11 

T.     Letters  Pass  Between  Old  Pards     .       15 

II.     Trains  That  Run  Without  Rails       .     27 

111.     Hunton  and  Clay— Bull-Train  :\Iag- 

nates 48 

TV.     Guarding  an  Overland  Freight  Out- 
fit          57 

V.     Rattlesnakes  and  Redskins         .  67 

VI.     Belated  Grace  for  a  Christmas  Din- 
ner    75 

VIT.  The  Fate  of  One-Eyed  Ed.         .  85 

VIII.  Track-Layers  Fought  Redskins       .  99 

IX.  "Bill"  Hickok,  City  Marshal       .  105 

X.  When  Chej^enne  Was  Young       .  113 

XI.  The  Lost  Indian  at  Bedtick  Creek  119 

XII.  A  She-Bear  and  Her  Cub       .       .  129 

XIII.  A  Kick  From   a   Playful   Bullock— 

and  a  Joke         ....       135 

XIV.  The  Indian  and  the  Trousers         .       143 

XV.     There's  a  Reason;   This  Is  It! 

Conclusion         .         .         .         .149 


INTRODUCTION 

WHEN  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  was  com- 
pleted from  Omaha,  Nebraska,  to  Ogden, 
Utah,  it  passed  through  a  territory  about  as 
barren  of  business  as  one  can  imagine.  It  ap- 
parently was  a  great  Sahara,  and  in  fact  some 
of  the  territory  now  growing  bumper  crops 
of  alfalfa,  grains  and  fruits,  was  set  down  in 
school  text-books  in  the  70 's  as  the  "Great 
American  Desert." 

Its  inhabitants  were,  outside  of  the  stations 
on  the  railroad,  largely  roaming  bands  of  In- 
dians, a  few  hundred  soldiers  at  military  posts, 
some  buffalo  and  other  hunters,  trappers,  a  few 
freighters,  and  many  outlawed  white  men. 

The  railroad  had  no  short  line  feeders,  and 
there  was,  in  the  period  of  which  I  write,  no 
need  for  them  sufficient  to  warrant  their  con- 
struction. There  Avere  military  posts  scattered 
along  the  North  Platte,  and  other  rivers  to  the 
north,  and  the  government  had  begun,  as  part 
of  its  effort  to  reconcile  the  Red  Man  to  the 
march  of  civilization  started  by  the  Iron  Horse, 
to  establish  agencies  for  the  distribution  of 
food  in  payment  to  the  tribes  for  lands  upon 
which  they  claimed  sovereignty.  These  oases 
in  the  then  great  desert  had  to  be  reached 
with  thousands  of  tons  of  flour,  bacon,  sugar, 
etc.,  consequently  large  private  concerns  were 


12  Introduction 

i'orined  and  coiitraets  taken  for  the  hauling  by 
ox-teams  of  the  provisions  sent  to  the  soldiers 
as  well  as  the  Indians. 

The  ox  was  the  most  available  and  suitable 
power  for  this  traffic  for  the  reason  that  he 
required  the  transportation  of  no  subsistence 
in  the  way  of  food,  and  Avas  thoroughly  accli- 
mated. Usually  he  was  a  Texan — a  long  horn 
— or  a  Mexican  short  horn  with  short  stocky 
legs,  although  the  Texan  was  most  generally 
used,  and  was  fleet-footed  and  built  almost  on 
the  plan  of  a  shad. 

Both  breeds  were  accustomed  to  no  food 
other  than  the  grasses  of  the  country,  upon 
which  they  flourished.  These  included  the  suc- 
culent bunch  grass. 

Oxen  were  used  in  teams  of  five,  six  and 
seven  yokes  and  hauled  large  canvas-covered 
wagons  built  for  the  purpose  in  Missouri,  "Wis- 
consin, Illinois  and  Indiana.  In  the  larger 
transportation  outfits  each  team  hauled  two 
wagons,  a  lead  and  a  trailer,  and  frequently 
were  loaded  with  from  6,500  to  8.000  pounds  of 
freight.  These  teams  were  driven  by  men  who 
were  as  tough  and  sturdy  as  the  oxen. 

Most  of  the  freighting  was  done  in  the 
spring,  summer  and  fall,  although  several  dis- 
astrous attempts  were  made  to  continue 
through  the  midwinter  season  to  relieve  food 
shortages  at  the  army  posts. 

It  may  seem  strange,  but  it  is  nevertheless 
true,  that  Indians  frequently  attacked  the  very 
wagon  trains  that  Avere  hauling  food  to  them. 


Introduction  13 

in  Wyoming  and  Western  Nebraska.  Perhaps 
they  were  the  original  anarchists ;  anyway, 
they  often  tried — seldom  suceessfnlly — to  de- 
stroy the  goose  that  laid  the  golden  egg,  but 
the  course  of  civilization's  stream  never  was 
seriously  turned,  for  it  flowed  rapidly  onward, 
and  between  1870  and  1885.  the  country  was 
quite  thoroughlj'^  transformed  from  a  wild  and 
uninhabited  territory  to  one  of  civilization  and 
great  commercial  productivity. 

Cattle  ranches  Avith  their  great  herds  came 
first,  then  sheep,  and  by  degrees  the  better 
portions  of  the  lands,  where  the  sweet  grasses 
grew,  and  even  on  the  almost  bare  uplands 
when  water  was  made  available  by  irrigation 
projects,  were  tilled.  Settlements  followed 
quickly — towns  Avith  schools  and  churches: 
then  branch  railroads,  the  development  of  the 
mines  of  gold,  silver,  coal,  etc.,  all  came  in  nat- 
ural order.  And  finally,  at  a  comparatively 
recent  date,  rich  fields  of  oil  were  discovered 
and  made  to  yield  millions  of  gallons  for  the 
Avorld's  market  and  millions  in  wealth. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  the  now  great 
territory  was,  in  the  day  of  men  still  active, 
regarded  as  of  little  or  no  value — the  home  of 
murderous,  wandering  tribes  of  savages  in  a 
climate  and  soil  unfitted  for  agriculture  and 
containing  little  else  of  commercial  value. 

But  science  and  enterprising  men  and  gov- 
ernments have  wrought  almost  a  miracle. 

Go  back  with  me  to  the  days  of  the  prairie 
schooner  before  the  Wild  West  was  reallv  dis- 


14  Introduction 

covered,  and  let  me  try  to  entertain  you  with 
just  a  glimpse  of  things  that  are  in  such  won- 
derful contrast  to  those  of  today. 

The  freight  trains  with  ox-team  power  have 
vanished,  never  to  return,  and  with  them  most 
of  the  men  who  handled  them. 

The  "color"  of  what  follows  is  real,  gath- 
ered when  the  Wild  West  was  wild;  and  I 
make  no  excuse  for  its  lack  of  what  an  Enos 
R.  Mills  or  a  Walter  Pritchard  Eaton  would 
put  in  it,  for  they  are  naturalists  while  I  am 
merely  a  survivor  of  a  period  in  the  develop- 
ment and  upbuilding  of  a  great  section  of  the 
golden  west. 

In  relating  incidents  to  develop  certain 
phases  of  pioneer  life  real  names  of  persons 
and  localities  have  not  always  been  used;  and 
in  some  of  the  narratives  several  incidents 
have  been  merged. 


Letters  Pass  Between  Old  Pards 


CHAPTER  I 

Letters  Pass  Between  Old  Pards. 
My  Bear  Friend: 

Can  you  put  me  in  correspondence  with  any 
of  the  old  boys  we  met  when  the  country  was 
new,  out  in  Wyoming?  *  *  *  Qf  the  Medi- 
cine Bow  range,  or  Whipple,  the  man  I  gave 
the  copper  specimens  to  ?    *    *    * 

Have  you  forgotten  the  importance  you  felt 
while  walking  up  and  down  the  long  line  of 
bovines,  swinging  your  "gad"  and  cursing  like 
a  mate  on  a  river  boat?  You  looked  bigger 
to  me  than  a  railroad  president  when  you  se- 
cured that  job,  as  you  used  to  say,  breaking 
on  a  bull-train.  I  should  say  you  were  an  en- 
gineer, but  I  suppose  you  know  best.  Those 
were  happy  days.  When  I  recall  the  fool 
things  we  did  to  satisfy  a  boy's  desire  for  ad- 
venture, I  wonder  that  we  are  alive.  How  we 
avoided  the  scalping  knife ;  escaped  having  our 
necks  broken,  or  being  trampled  to  death  un- 
der the  feet  of  herds  of  buffalo  is  a  mystery 
to  me.    *    *    * 

When  the  building  of  the  Union  Pacific  road 
checked  the  buffaloes  in  their  passage  from 
summer  to  winter  feeding  grounds,  and  they 
were  banked  up  along  the  line  near  Julesburg 
in  thousands,  I  recall  the  delight  we  took  in 
watching    them    "get    up    and    get."      What 


18  The  Prairie  Schooner 

clouds  of  dust  they  M^ould  kick  up  when  they 
got  down  to  business!  And  such  dust  as  the 
Chalk  Bluff  would  make  never  entered  the 
eyes  or  lungs  of  man  elsewhere.  Weren't  we 
whales  when  we  could  divide  or  turn  a  herd? 
And  how  we  would  turn  tail-to,  "spur  and 
quirt"  for  our  lives  if  the  bunch  did  not  show 
signs  of  swerving  from  their  course.  How  a 
cow-pony  can  carry  a  man  safely  over  such 
treacherous  ground  as  the  dog-towns  is  almost 
a  miracle. 

0!  to  have  my  fill  of  antelope  steak  or  buf- 
falo "hump"  broiled  on  a  cone  of  buffalo 
chips!  Nothing  better  ever  entered  my  mouth 
on  the  plains.  The  soothing  song  of  the  lone 
night-herder  of  the  bull-train  as  he  circles  and 
beds  his  stock  is  not  more  conducive  to  sweeter 
slumbers  than  we  enjoyed  by  the  rippling 
streams  in  the  hills  of  Wyoming. 

The  difficulty  we  had  in  boiling  beans  until 
done  in  so  high  an  altitude ;  our  hunt  for  a 
gun  at  old  Dale  Creek  where  "Shorty"  Hig- 
gins  died  suddenly;  the  fool  act  on  my  part 
when,  afoot  and  alone,  I  recovered  the  horse 
the  Comanches  had  stolen  from  us,  I  wish  we 
might  corral  some  of  our  old-time  friends  and 
go  over  the  past  before  we  leave  this  land, 
"for  when  we  die  we  will  be  a  long  time 
dead." 

The  wild  horse  that  roamed  the  West,  among 
which  was  the  stallion  who  so  valiantly  guard- 
ed his  harem  on  the  Laramie  Plains,  was  a 
model   for  a   Landseer.     The   great  herds   of 


The  Prairie  Schooner  19 

buffalo  that  looked  like  shadows  east  on  the 
plains  by  clouds  passing  the  sun  and  the  myr- 
iads of  passenger  pigeons,  are  among  the 
things  that  man  will  never  see  again,  and  as 
read  from  the  chronicles  of  history  a  few  years 
hence,  will  be  classed  with  the  Jonah  and  the 
Whale  story. 

Old  Man,  Avlien  convenient,  write  me  a  long 
letter  recalling  some  of  the  old  days,  for — 

"I'm  growing  fonder  of  my  staff, 
I'm  growing  dimmer  in  my  eyes, 
I'm  growing  fainter  in  my  laugli, 
I'm  growing  deeper  in  my  sighs; 
I'm  growing  careless   in   my  dress, 
I'm  growing  frugal  with  my  gold, 
I'm  growing    wise — I'm    growing — yes, 
I'm  growing   old." 

Sincerely  yours, 

VAN. 

The  reply : 

My  Dear  Old  Pard: 

Your  note  concerning  the  events  of  long  ago 
out  on  the  Laramie  Plains  and  the  Harney  flats 
shoots  across  my  vision  events  in  the  Cache 
de  La  Poudre  (the  Poodre),  the  Chugwater 
country,  old  Cheyenne,  Sherman,  Fort  Lara- 
mie, Fetterman,  Camp  Carlin,  both  Plattes,  the 
Medicine  Bow  waters  and  range,  Allen's  "Gold 
Room,"  McDaniel's  hurdy-gurdy,  the  dust- 
stirring,  dust-laden  buffalo  east  of  Chalk  Bluffs, 
the  deer  and  antelope  of  the  whole  Wyoming 
territory,  the  sage-hens,  and  I  don't  know 
what  not. 


20  The  Prairie   Schooner 

It  makes  me-  stop  and  lope  back  into  the 
sage-brush.  It  makes  me  climb  the  mountain 
sides  and  urge  the  bulls  to  fill  their  pinon 
yokes,  tighten  the  chains,  and  hurry  along  the 
four  or  five  tons  of  bacon  or  flour  or  shelled 
corn  in  gunny-sacks  that  Uncle  Sam  wants  de- 
livered somewhere  over  the  range,  across  the 
desert  sweeps,  through  cactus-grown,  prickly 
pear  sprinkled  wastes,  on  through  the  dog- 
towns,  in  the  heavy  sand  sifting  through  the 
spokes,  and  falling  off  in  a  spiral  fount  from 
the  slow-turning  hub. 

Ah,  yes,  old  pard,  and  as  I  whack  my  bulls 
in  the  train  that  runs  without  rails  to  the  top 
of  a  long  divide,  I  look  for  three  things: 
water,  smoke  and  Indians. 

There  were  no  railroads  north  of  Cheyenne 
— nothing  but  the  "bull-trains."  There  away 
on  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  over  the  yellow 
bunch  grass,  cured  by  the  sun,  is  a  strip  of 
green.  It  is  box-elder,  and  underbrush.  Stand- 
ing out  here  and  there  like  grim  sentinels  on 
guard  are  the  big,  always  dead  and  leafless 
cottonwoods,  white  as  graveyard  ghosts,  day 
or  night.  It  seems  to  be  only  a  flat  surface 
haul  to  this  refreshing  looking  strip  of  green, 
and,  as  I  have  stopped  the  whole  wagon-train 
by  making  this  observation,  and  the  wagon 
boss  is  moving  my  way  on  a  big  mule,  I  tap  the 
off  leader,  who  is  thirty  odd  feet  away,  with 
my  long  lash  and  yell : 

"Whoa,  haw.  Brownie,"  but  not  too  loud  at 
first :  just  an   encouraging  word  or  two,  and 


The  Prairie  Schooner  21 

then  string  'em  out.  My  leaders  are  light  of 
feet  and  built  like  running  horses.  The  point- 
ers— or  middle  yokes — come  in  reluctantly, 
but  I  attend  to  that,  and  with  the  butt  end  of 
my  stock,  jab  the  near  wheeler  in  the  ribs, 
and  away  we  go. 

But,  old  pard,  inside  of  three  minutes  my 
strip  of  green  is  gone !  In  its  place  is  the  quiv- 
ering, broiling  sun  over  the  yellow  bunch- 
grass  ;  the  ashen  stalks  of  the  sage  seem  never 
to  have  had  a  drop  of  sap  in  them — every- 
thing is  dead.  Even  the  jack-rabbit  that  stops 
for  a  look  seems  bedraggled  and  forlorn,  but  I 
whistle,  pick  up  a  moss  agate,  throw  it  in  my 
jockey  box,  and  jog  along,  for  the  surface  is 
now  hard  as  a  stone,  though  off  ahead  there 
I  will  unwind  my  lash  and  send  its  stinging 
thongs  to  the  backs  of  my  noble  beasts,  touch- 
ing only  selected  spots  where  the  hair  has  been 
worn  away  until  the  surface  looks  like  the 
head  of  the  drum  in  a  village  band. 

Yes,  I  know  they  used  to  think  us  bull- 
whackers  were  brutes,  but  they  (an  occasional 
tenderfoot)  only  saw  the  surface.  They  had 
never  heen  initiated;  they  didn't  know  the 
secrets.  It  was  only  when  the  load  just  had 
to  be  yanked;  to  the  top  without  doubling 
teams  or  dropping  trailers,  that  we  used  the 
undercut  which  sent  the  long  V-shaped  pop- 
per upon  the  tender  spots  of  the  belly,  and 
then,  Pard,  the  thing  looked  worse  because 
the  Comanche-like  language  we  hurled  with  it 
was  so  unusual  to  ears  that  had  been  trained 


22  The  Prairie  Schooner 

east  of  the  Missouri  River.  It  sure  was  pic- 
turesque language ! 

But  we  were  all  day  reaching  that  green  belt 
strung  like  a  ribbon  across  the  face  of  central 
Wyoming,  and  from  the  time  we  first  hove  in 
sight  of  it,  until  we  pulled  the  pins  from  the 
steamy  yokes,  and  dropped  the  hickory  bows 
at  our  feet,  it  appeared  and  disappeared  so 
often  that  I  wonder  that  both  man  and  beast 
did  not  go  mad.  However,  inasmuch  as  this 
was  a  daily  programme  for  me  for  several 
years,  I  know  that  man  can  stand  a  whole  lot 
of  hardship,  if  he  only  thinks  so. 

And  then  ring  in  the  change  from  the  des- 
ert heat  of  midsummer  to  trifles  like  thirty 
below  in  winter  along  the  same  landscape, 
when  you  see  the  ghostly  cottonwoods  and  an- 
ticipate your  arrival  among  them  some  hours 
later.  Won't  there  be  a  roaring  fire?  And 
beans?  And  bacon?  And  pones  of  bread  for 
everyone?  Wet  stockings  piled  on  inverted 
yokes  or  held  on  pieces  of  brush,  are  drying, 
we  are  nursing  our  chilblains  and  discussing 
the  incidents  of  the  day's  drive,  and  not  a 
weakling  in  the  outfit.  Every  man  has  been 
frozen  or  soaked  all  day,  but  he's  as  happy  as 
a  lark.  Sleep?  You  bet!  You  know  it;  but 
if  you  and  I  tell  our  friends  around  our  com- 
fortable firesides  now  or  in  the  lobby  of  an 
onyx-walled  Waldorf-Astoria,  Belmont  or  Bilt- 
more,  that  we  just  kicked  a  hole  in  the  snow, 
rolled  into  our  blankets  and  dreamed  of  being 
roasted    to    death,    they   would   look   at  your 


The  Prairie  Schooner  23 

well-shaven  face,  my  biled  shirt,  and  then  at 
your  highly  polished  shoes,  then  at  my  black 
derby,  and,  dammit,  I  believe  they  might  be 
justified  in  forming  the  opinion  that  neither 
one  of  us  had  ever  been  deprived  of  breakfast 
food,  or  bath  tubs,  or  a  manicure  artist's  serv- 
ices.    *    *    * 

You  want  to  know  if  I  can  locate  any  of  the 
old  gang.  Sure !  Some  sleep  in  the  sidehills 
along  the  swift-flowing  waters  of  the  North 
Platte,  one  or  two  are  parts  of  gravel  beds 
down  on  the  wild  meadows — or  what  were  the 
wild  meadows  of  hundreds  of  square  miles  be- 
tween the  North  Platte  and  the  Poudre ;  but 
not  a  few,  like  you  and  I,  stalk  abroad  on  the 
face  of  the  earth — cheating  first,  as  we  did, 
tribes  of  Sioux,  Arapahoe,  Cheyenne  and  the 
Comanches  who  swept  up  across  Kansas  and 
Nebraska;  escaping  the  blizzards,  periods  of 
starvation,  cold,  heat,  fire,  water,  whisky,  and 
finally  the  surgeon's  knife.  I  tell  you,  the 
world  only  thinks  it  knows  a  thing  or  two 
about  how  the  human  body  is  made,  and  how 
much  it  can  stand.  But  to  answer  your  ques- 
tions : 

Jim  Bansom,  the  last  time  I  knew  of  him,  in 
1875,  was  headed  east  with  a  fine  span  of 
bosses  and  a  f air-to-middlin '  wagon. 

Don't  know  where  he  went  and  don't  know 
what  he  did  with  the  bosses  or  the  wagon ! 
'Taint  none  o'  my  bizness,  neither!  In  those 
days  it  wasn't  customary  to  be  too  gol-darned 
inquisitive     about    such    things,    unless    you 


24  The  Prairie  Schooner 

owned  the  bosses  or  the  wagon,  or  a  bit,  or  a 
halter,  or  something  of  that  sort  you  hap- 
pened to  loan  to  the  outfit ;  and  then,  of  course, 
you   could   take   the   trail   if  you   wanted   to. 

Sam  Smith,  old  U.  P.  conductor,  walked  into 
my  office  a  while  ago,  and,  as  he  closed  the 
door  behind  him,  I  said,  "Hello,  Sam;  haven't 
seen  you  since  1875,  but  you're  the  same 
Sam!"    Then  I  told  him  my  name. 

And  then  Sam  gasped  and  acted  like  maybe 
he  might  pull  a  gun,  thinking  me  an  impostor; 
because  when  Sam  saw  me  the  last  time, 
stretched  out  in  his  caboose  on  the  old  moun- 
tain division  of  the  U.  P.,  and  the  train  sail- 
ing down  the  toboggan  that  slid  us  into  Lara- 
mie City,  past  Tie  Siding  and  old  Fort  Saun- 
ders, my  hair  was  black,  and  I  had  a  different 
look. 

Maybe  I  looked  bad.  I  guess  I  did,  for  I 
carried  a  gun  and  a  belt  of  forty  rounds,  and 
a  butcher  knife  in  a  scabbard,  just  as  we  all 
did,  for  it  was  the  custom  of  the  country ;  and 
I  had  long  hair,  too,  and  it  was  matted  and 
dirty,  mixed  with  pitch  that  came  from  camp- 
fires  in  the  hills.  No  doubt  I  looked  wretched, 
but,  old  Pard,  I  didn't  even  feel  that  way.  I 
felt  good,  and  I  was  as  harmless  as  a  pigeon. 

But  I  said  something  about  a  hatband  of 
rattlers'  rattles  that  I  gave  his  little  girl  at 
Cheyenne,  as  I  rode  up  to  his  door  aboard  a 
cavuse.  and  that  settled  it.     We  talked  about 


The  Prairie  Schooner  2.5 

snow-sheds,  the  Sherman  hill,  once  the  highest 
railroad  point  in  the  world,  and  of  old  times  in 
general. 

But  what 's  the  use  1  When  you  come  to  New 
York,  I'll  meet  you  at  the  Waldorf  and  we'll 
talk  about  it  all  night,  and  wish  the  buffalo 
were  still  there,  and  the  sagebrush,  and  the 
bull-trains,  and  the  other  things  undisturbed 
by  civilization.     So  long.  BILL. 

New  York,  August,  1917. 

[NOTE — The  above  letters  are  from  the  author's 
files.  "Van"  is  a  multi-millionaire  manufac- 
turer living  in  a  middle-western  state.  For  sev- 
eral years  his  pastime  was  buffalo  hunting  and 
"roughing  it"  in  the  wild  and  woolly  west. 

The  author,  when  a  boy  of  16,  was  developing 
a  case  of  tuljerculosis  of  the  lungs,  and  to  es- 
cape the  fate  that  had  overtaken  other  members 
of  his  family,  took  Horace  Greeley's  advice,  went 
west,  and  grew  up  with  the  country.  He  had 
been  a  clerk  in  a  railroad  office,  and  still  is  in 
the  railroad  business  in  New  York  City,  more  than 
forty  years  after  the  events  related  in  the  fol- 
lowing chapters.  He  is  the  only  survivor  of  a 
family  of  fourteen,  including  all  of  his  own  chil- 
dren, eight  in  number.] 


Trains  That  Ran  Without  Rails 


CHAPTER  II 
Trains  That  Ran  Without  Rails. 

BEFORE  railroads  were  built  iu  the  country 
west  of  the  Missouri  River  there  was,  never- 
theless, considerable  doing  in  the  transporta- 
tion line.  And  even  after  the  Union  Pacific 
was  built  from  Omaha  to  Ogden  to  connect 
with  the  Central  Pacific,  which  carried  the  rails 
to  the  Golden  Gate,  most  of  the  transportation 
of  the  then  great  Wild  West,  in  the  mountains, 
on  the  plains  and  the  "Great  American  Des- 
ert," was  done  by  ox-teams.  These  were  run 
in  trains  of  from  ten  to  fifty  or  sixty  teams, 
the  teams  consisting  usually  of  from  five  to 
seven  yokes  of  oxen  and  lead  and  trail  wagons 
built  for  the  purpose. 

These  wagons  were  called  prairie  schooners, 
because  they  were  supplied  with  canvas  cover- 
ings. The  first  of  these,  made  in  St.  Louis,  were 
called  "Murphys, "  and  were  provided  with 
iron  axles.  Later  many  of  them  were  made  in 
Indianapolis,  Chicago,  and  Kenosha,  Wis.,  the 
latter  known  as  the  Bain.  The  Schuttler  and 
the  Bain  wagons  were  almost  as  big  and  sub- 
stantial as  a  box  ear  and  were  well  painted 
and  put  together  to  stand  hard  knocks  on 
mountain  "breaknecks"  or  in  Bad  Land  sands. 

The  lead  wagon  would  carry  an  average  of 


30  The  Prairie  Schooner 

6,500  pounds,  while  the  trailer — fastened  to  the 
lead  by  a  short  tongue — had  a  capacity  of  per- 
haps two  tons.  In  a  sandy  place  or  on  a  moun- 
tain road,  the  hullwhacker  (teamster)  would 
slacken  his  team,  pull  a  coupling  pin  from  an 
iron  half-circle  arrangement  on  the  axle  of  his 
lead  wagon,  drop  his  trailer  to  one  side  of  the 
road  and  proceed  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  if  in 
the  mountains,  or  to  an  "island"  of  hard 
ground  in  the  desert,  unhook  his  wheelers  and 
go  back  for  the  trailer.  Sometimes  a  "bull 
outfit"  would  spend  a  whole  day  doing  this. 
Lead  wagons  were  parked  one  at  a  time  and 
the  trailers  brought  on  later  and  hooked  up. 
These  parkings  were  in  the  shape  of  an  oval, 
called  a  corral,  a  narrow  opening  being  left 
only  at  each  end. 

Inside  this  corral,  when  it  came  time  to  yoke 
up,  the  cattle  were  driven  in  by  the  herders, 
if  the  camp  had  been  for  over  night  or  a  long 
mid-day  stop.  Then  the  bullwhackers,  carry- 
ing the  heavy  pifion  yokes  over  their  left 
shoulders,  hickory  bows  in  their  right  hands 
and  iron  or  wooden  pins  with  leather  strip 
fastened  to  them  in  their  mouths,  would  seek 
out  their  teams,  yoking  them  together  and 
leading  them  to  their  wagons. 

When  a  "whacker"  had  his  "wheelers,"  or 
pole  oxen,  in  place,  he  woald  bring  on  his 
"pointers,"  and  the  rest,  including  the  leaders. 
The  wheelers  were  always  the  heavyweights, 
old  and  trained,  and  able  to  hold  back  the 
load    or    their    unruly    teammates    until    the 


The  Prairie  Schooner  31 

whackers  could  throw  on  a  brake  or  "rough 
lock,"  the  last  named  a  log  chain  fastened  at 
one  end  to  the  wagon,  thrown  through  the 
Avheel  spokes  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  between 
the  ground  and  the  wheel  on  the  "near  rear 
hind  wheel"  of  the  lead  wagon. 

New  cattle  just  being  trained  to  yoke  were 
always  put  in  the  center  of  the  team,  where 
they  were  easily  managed  with  the  assistance 
of  the  "leaders,"  which  were  always  light 
weights  and  most  always  long-horns  from 
Texas^ — long  horns,  long  legs  and  bodies,  thin 
as  a  razorback  hog.  These  leaders  were  always 
the  best  broken  oxen,  and  would  respond  to 
the  low-spoken  w«rd!  of  "haw"  or  "gee," 
especially  if  the  word  were  uttered  in  the  pe- 
culiar musical  tone  of  the  whacker  which  can- 
not be  described  in  print,  not  only  because  it 
is  impossible  to  convey  sound  in  that  manner 
but  because  the  language  that  goes  with  the 
music — the  request  to  gee  or  haw — would  not 
be  pleasant  reading.  Alone,  the  leaders  would 
trot  like  horses. 

The  average  person  outside  of  Texas  and 
the  southwest  and  some  of  the  western  states 
has  a  mental  picture,  perhaps,  of  the  Texas 
steer  of  the  long-horn  variety.  Those  who  lived 
thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  even  in  the  East,  re- 
member him  as  a  member  of  the  quadruped 
family  consisting  largely  of  horn,  for  it  was 
not  an  infrequent  thing  to  see  him  in  a  cattle 
car  on  a  sidetrack.  He  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  also  entitled  to  a  reputation  for  his  legs. 


32  Tlie  Prairie  Schooner 

for  they  were  unusually  long.  His  body,  too, 
was  slim,  and  he  never  was  fat  for  the  reason 
that  while  free  to  roam  the  ranges  at  will  he 
devoted  most  of  his  time  to  using  his  horns  in 
goring  his  mates  and  neglected  to  eat.  He 
raced  about  from  place  to  place,  whereas,  if 
he  had  no  horns  he  would  have  been  a  peaceful 
animal  and  consequently  much  more  valuable 
for  the   market. 

The  old-time  Texas  steer  often  was  as  fleet- 
footed  as  a  Kentucky  racehorse  of  the  thor- 
oughbred variety,  and  it  took  a  good  horse  to 
catch  him  when  he  made  up  his  mind  to  run. 

Nevertheless,  thousands  of  these  Texas  steers 
were  broken  to  yoke,  and  used  in  overland 
transportation ;  and  once  broken  they  were 
good  workers,  even  though  their  horns  were 
always  in  the  way,  and  the  cause  of  a  great 
deal  of  trouble  in  a  herd. 

While  I  have  no  authority  for  the  statement, 
I  believe  practical  dehorning  began  with  the 
bullwhackers  of  the  plains,  for  they  frequent- 
ly bored  holes  in  the  horns  which  in  a  few 
weeks  caused  the  horns  to  drop  ofiP.  Then  it 
Avas  noted  that  if  the  dehorned  cattle  were 
kept  separate  from  those  Avith  horns,  the  de- 
horaed  ones,  even  when  Avorking  hard  CA'^ery 
day,  took  on  flesh  and  Avere  better  Avorkers. 
Finally  nearly  all  the  work-oxen  Avere  de- 
horned, and  they  Avere  as  meek  and  quiet  as 
lambs. 

The  whacker  ahvays  began  his  orders  to  his 
bulls  in  a  Ioav  tone,  increasing  it  as  the  neces- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  33 

sity  for  action  presented  itself,  and  ending  in  a 
string  of  oaths  that  would  make  an  old-time 
Mississippi  steamboat  mate  ashamed  of  his 
reputation.  Frequently  teams  were  stalled  on 
a  high  hill  or  in  the  sand,  when  it  would  be 
necessary  to  gee  the  team  of  seven  yokes  at  an 
almost  right  angle,  with  chains  between  each 
yoke  slackened  and  with  "wheelers"  filling 
their  yokes.  Then  the  whacker  would  walk 
out  half  way  to  his  leaders  and  soothingly  coax 
them  to  come  haw — toward  him — on  a  trot, 
until  all  the  chains  between  the  other  yokes 
were  tightened.  By  this  time,  however,  Mr. 
Whacker  was  back  to  his  wheelers,  perhaps 
punching  the  near  one  in  the  ribs,  and  then 
throwing  his  eighteen  or  twenty  foot  lash  over 
the  backs  of  any  of  the  yokes  that  were  not 
clawing  the  sand  properly.  In  this  way  the 
men  often  worked  for  days  at  a  time,  making 
sometimes  only  a  few  rods  by  each  repetition 
of  the  operation.  Then  again,  the  wagon 
boss  would  order  a  doubling-up  process  and 
two  whackers  and  fourteen  yokes  of  oxen  would 
work  on  one  pair  of  wagons,  taking  them  along 
perhaps  a  mile,  and  then  returning,  repeat 
the  process  until  the  bad  road  Avas  left  behind. 
This  was  transportation  in  the  old  days,  and 
"trains"  of  this  kind  first  hauled  the  heavy 
traffic  from  Leavenworth  and  Nebraska  City 
to  the  Pacific  and  intermediate  settlements  in 
Colorado,  Utah  and  Wyoming.  After  the 
Union  Pacific  was  built  this  bullwhacker  trans- 
portation increased,  especially  in  the  country 


34  The  Prairie  Schooner 

between  Utah  and  the  Missouri  River,  in  both 
directions  away  from  the  railroad,  for  the  gov- 
ernment had  a  line  of  forts  on  the  North  Platte 
River  and  Indian  Agencies  were  established  in 
"Western  Nebraska,  Wyoming  and  what  is  now 
South  Dakota. 

Two  of  these  agencies,  Red  Cloud,  on  White 
River,  and  Spotted  Tail,  forty  miles  to  the 
north,  were  big  traffic  points.  Train  loads  of 
bacon,  flour,  sugar  and  other  things  were  haul- 
ed to  these  agencies  on  government  contract, 
the  provisions  being  in  payment  to  the  Sioux 
and  other  tribes  for  the  land  they  occupied 
near  the  North  Platte  River.  Along  the  Platte 
there  were  forts — two  famous  in  their  day — 
Fort  Laramie  at  the  junction  of  the  Platte  and 
Laramie  Rivers,  and  Fort  Fetterman,  one  hun- 
dred miles  west  of  Fort  Laramie,  on  the  Platte 
at  Lapariel  Creek.  Soldiers  here  depended 
upon  the  ''bull  outfits"  for  their  provisions, 
nearly  all  being  hauled  in  over  mountain  range 
and  plain  by  contractors. 

Those  were  wild  and  woolly  days,  and  the 
man  Avho  lived  the  life  of  out-of-doors  was  a 
rugged,  devil-may-care,  hungry,  healthy,  happy 
fellow.  He  knew  how  to  face  a  freezing  bliz- 
zard, or  a  baking  sun  without  flinching ;  he 
knew  how  to  take  care  of  himself  Avith  a  mini- 
mum of  discomfort  under  the  most  adverse 
circumstances.  He  was  afraid  of  nothing.  It 
Avouldn't  do  otherwise.  He  was  there,  usually 
beyond  the  arm  of  any  law  other  than  ordi- 
nances made  and  provided  by  himself  and  com- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  35 

panions  and  enforced  by  the  same  law-givers. 
Stealing  was  a  worse  crime  than  life-taking. 
There  ncA^er  was  an  excuse  for  the  first,  but 
nearly  always  one  could  be  trumped  up  for 
the  latter.  To  take  a  man's  horse  was  worse 
than  cold-blooded  murder;  to  rob  him  of  his 
^n  or  his  blankets  was  equally  as  bad  a 
crime.  But  if  he  had  been  cheated  in  a  game 
of  "freeze  out."  or  called  a  name  that  reflected 
upon  his  origin  it  was  not  uncommon  for  him 
to  become  judge  and  executioner  then  and  there. 

So  men  who  engaged  in  this  early  day  trans- 
portation of  food  and  fodder  for  soldiers  and 
their  mounts  and  for  the  followers  of  Sitting 
Bull,  Old  Red  Cloud  and  other  chiefs,  were 
careful  in  their  social  intercourse,  and  when 
the  harsh  word  was  passed,  as  frequently  was 
the  case,  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  men 
to  settle  their  score,  with  pistols :  and  the  Avin- 
ner  in  these  duels  seldom,  if  ever,  Avas  pun- 
ished. But  a  cold-blooded  murder — a  wanton 
killing — was  never  tolerated.  Tn  a  fight  with 
pistols  it  was  always  considered  tliat  the  man 
who  did  the  killing  was  justified. 

Unlike  the  present  day  fliers,  bull  trains  did 
not  run  on  schedules,  although  there  Avas  a  pre- 
tense of  regularity  about  the  day's  routine, 
and  it  was  about  as  follows : 

At  break  of  day  the  night  herder  AA^ho  had 
been  out  with  the  bulls  all  night — it  is  always 
daybreak  to  him  Avhether  three  o'clock  or  five 
— drives  his  herd  into  the  corral,  usually  sing- 
ing some  refrain  of  his  OAvn  composition,  but 


36  The  Prairie  Schooner 

always  having  for  its  motive  the  same  that  ani- 
mates the  pestiferous  alarm  clock  set  by  a 
master  to  disturb  the  slumber  of  a  tired  serv- 
ant. However,  a  half  hour  before  the  herder 
appears  the  cook  and  his  helper,  both  bull- 
Avhackers,  doing  their  turn  of  a  week,  have 
been  on  the  job  with  the  coffee  and  bacon,  and 
as  soon  as  the  herder  sounds  his  first  note,  the 
cook  takes  up  the  song,  which  is  perhaps: 

Bacon  in  the  pan. 

Coffee  in  the  pot; 
Get  up  and  get  it — 

Get  it  while  it's  hot. 

And  then,  and  it  is  always  so,  some  of  the 
lively  stock,  as  it  approaches  the  corral,  takes 
the  notion  that  there  is  some  nice  sweet  buffalo 
bunch  grass  to  the  rear  that  looks  better  than 
a  day's  work,  and  there  is  a  bolt  often  ap- 
proaching a  stampede.  Curses?  You  never 
heard  the  like,  for  the  wagon  boss  and  an 
assistant  are  already  in  their  saddles  helping 
the  herder.  If  you  tried  to  sleep  just  a  minute 
longer  it  would  be  impossible,  therefore  you 
roll  out  from  your  bed  on  the  ground,  fold  up 
your  blankets,  tie  them  with  a  strap  and 
throw  them  on  your  trail  wagon. 

Coffee  and  bacon  are  swallowed  in  haste,  and 
if  you  are  like  the  majority,  you  grab  a  piece 
of  bacon  and  a  chunk  of  bread,  bang  them 
together  into  a  huge  sandwich  and  put  them 
in  the  jockey  box  of  your  wagon  for  a  lunch 
at  eight  or  nine  o'clock. 

Yoking  and   stringing   out  the   oxen  is  the 


The  Prairie  Schooner  87 

next  operation,  and  a  short  one  in  a  well  regu- 
lated outfit.  Twenty  minutes,  usually,  from 
the  time  the  bulls  are  driven  in,  the  lead  team 
is  moving,  and  when  the  "outfit,"  as  every 
train  is  called,  is  well  under  way,  the  lead 
wagon  is  perhaps  a  half  mile  from  the  last 
one,  which  is  the  mess  wagon,  containing  the 
provisions,  cooking  utensils,  levers  for  raising 
a  load  of  four  or  five  tons,  the  iron  jacks,  ex- 
tra tires,  coils  of  rope,  pulleys,  wheels,  extra 
spokes,  bars  of  iron,  and  almost  always  a 
small  forge — a  regular  wrecking  outfit. 

In  hot  summer  weather  on  fair  roads  a  bull 
train  would  make  four  or  five  miles  before  the 
sun  was  high  enough  to  burn — usually  nine 
o'clock.  Then,  if  the  camp  was  to  be  a  "wet" 
one — at  a  creek,  river  or  spring — there  would 
be  a  "layover"  until  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, during  which  time  the  boys  could  sleep 
under  a  wagon,  wash  their  clothes,  or  if  in  a 
creek  or  river  bottom,  shoulder  a  gun  and  look 
for  moccasin,  lodge  pole  or  bear  tracks. 

All  day  long,  however,  the  men  who  were  on 
the  cook  trick  would  make  bread  in  Dutch 
ovens.  And  let  me  tell  you,  no  bull  outfit  ever 
stopped  for  a  long  mid-day  rest  without  put- 
ting on  a  huge  kettle  of  beans,  for  the  army 
or  white  bean  was  the  staple  food  in  those 
days ;  and  there  was  always,  on  these  long 
mid-day  stops,  plenty  of  soup. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  boys  in  his  meanderings 
up  or  down  the  creek  would  bag  a  deer.  If 
he  wandered  out  upon  the  plain  he  was  sure 


38  The  Prairie  Schooner 

of  an  antelope,  if  he  was  a  good  shot.  The 
deer  kept  to  the  trees  along  the  rivers  and  the 
hills,  while  the  antelopes'  territory  was  the 
open  plain,  hard  to  get  at  unless  the  plain 
were  rolling,  and  the  hunter  could  be  in  the 
right  place  as  regards  the  wind. 

Sometimes  there  were  poker  games,  usually 
freeze-out,  which  the  men  played  with  plug 
tobacco  cut  up  into  small  cubes.  Others  would 
spend  their  time  braiding  whips  or  mending 
clothing. 

The  bullwhacker's  whip  not  only  made  a 
tenderfoot  open  his  eyes  with  wonder,  but  it 
usually  shocked  him.  It  was  something  he 
had  never  seen  before,  and  if  he  had  been  told 
that  a  man  of  ordinary  strength  would  be 
able  to  wield  it  he  would  have  been  decidedly 
incredulous. 

Differing  from  a  cowboy's  or  herder's  whip, 
the  bullwhip  lash  was  attached  to  a  stalk  of 
hickory  or  white  ash  three  feet  long  upon  which 
the  whacker  could  firmly  plant  both  hands. 
The  lash  at  the  butt,  which  was  attached  to 
the  stick  by  a  soft  strip  of  buckskin,  formed 
in  a  loop  or  swivel,  frequently  was  more  than 
an  inch  thick.  These  lashes  were  from  eigh- 
teen to  more  than  twenty  feet  long  and  were 
graduated  in  thickness  from  this  great  bulk 
to  the  tip,  which  was  the  thickness  of  a  lead 
pencil.  The  number  of  strands  in  a  bullwhip 
were  also  graduated.  At  the  butt  there  were 
as  many  strands  as  the  maker — usuallj^  the 
bullwhacker — could  weave,  often  fourteen.    At 


The  Prairie  Schooner  39 

the  tip,  this  iiuiuber  was  reduced  to  six.  The 
top,  and  down  to  six  or  eight  feet  from  the 
end,  the  whip  was  made  of  leather,  often  old 
boot  tops.  The  rest  was  of  tough  buckskin  or 
elkskin.  But  on  the  very  tip  of  the  whip — 
the  business  end — was  a  "popper"  of  buck- 
skin cut  in  the  shape  of  a  long  V,  the  bottom 
end  of  the  V  running  into  a  strand  which  was 
braided  into  the  tip. 

The  bull  whacker,  when  using  this  instru- 
ment, first  threw  it  out  before  him  upon  the 
ground ;  then  by  the  use  of  all  his  strength  he 
swung  it  in  over  his  head,  to  the  right,  often 
whirling  it  several  times  before  he  let  it  go 
upon  the  back  of  the  bull  he  wanted  to  reach. 

To  the  man  who  never  saw  this  operation 
before,  there  Avas  a  shock,  for  as  the  whip 
landed  on  the  bull  the  popper  made  a  roar 
like  the  report  of  a  cannon. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  bull  Avas  uninjured, 
unless  the  bulhvhacker  was  careless  and  al- 
lowed his  popper  to  strike  a  tender  spot,  the 
nose,  an  eye  or  the  belh\ 

It  was  almost  a  crime  for  a  buUwhacker  to 
cut  a  bull  and  draw  the  blood,  and  he  seldom 
did  it  unless  his  popper  had  been  wet  and 
then  dried.  The  spot  usually  aimed  for  was 
the  hip,  and  bulls  that  had  been  in  service 
any  length  of  time  had  a  spot  on  the  rump 
that  was  hairless,  resembling  the  head  of  a 
drum.     But  the  spot  was  tough.     The  noise  of 


40  The  Prairie  Schooner 

the  popper,   however,   was   what  startled  the 
team  and  caused  it  to  "dig  in." 

Frequently  in  the  summer  the  afternoon 
drive  lasted  until  ten  or  eleven  o'clock,  espe- 
cially if  there  was  a  moon.  You  cannot  imag- 
ine a  more  impressive,  weird,  wild  sight.  The 
shadows,  the  rattle  of  the  wagons,  perhaps  the 
scream  of  a  night  bird  or  a  wild  cat — maybe 
the  zip  of  an  arrow  from  a  redskin's  bow,  or 
the  report  of  a  gun,  all  calculated  to  keep  even 
the  hardened  buUwhaeker  on  his  mettle.  And 
for  tliis  the  bullwliacker  got  $75  to  $100  a 
month  and  "gnib. "  He  usually  spent  his 
money  at  the  end  of  his  trip  much  after  the 
habit  of  the  sailor  who  rounds  the  Horn. 

In  the  cold  weather  the  hardships  were 
many.  There  were,  remember,  no  bridges  and 
the  roads  crossed  numerous  streams,  all  of 
which  had  to  be  forded ;  and  there  was  but 
one  way  to  cross,  and  that  was  to  wade  and 
guide  a  team. 

Usually  the  heavy  freighting  was  done  be- 
fore December,  but  often  it  was  necessary  to 
fight  through  blizzards  and  zero  weather.  It 
was  this  kind  of  work  that  tried  the  soul  of 
even  the  hardy  bullwhacker,  and  not  infre- 
quently his  hands,  feet,  ears  or  face  were 
frozen.  It  was  hard  on  the  cattle,  too,  al- 
though it  was  almost  always  possible  to  find 
plentj^  of  good  feeding  ground  of  buffalo  grass, 
Avhich  grew  in  heavy  bunches  and  was  very 
sweet  in   its  drj'^  state,  for  the  wind  usually 


The  Prairie  Schooner  41 

kept  places  bare.  If  not,  the  bulls  would  nose 
it  out  from  under  several  inches  of  snow  and 
manage  to  get  something  approaching  a  meal. 
Otherwise,  they  went  hungry,  for  no  feed  of  any 
kind  Avas  ever  carried  for  them. 

Indians,  usually,  Avere  too  lazy  to  hunt  the 
white  man  in  winter,  so  there  was  seldom  any 
trouble  from  this  source  after  the  first  snow- 
fall. But  when  the  grass  was  green  it  was  dif- 
ferent, especially  in  the  mountains  or  foothills. 
Redskins  seldom  fought  a  real  battle  in  the 
open.  To  the  buUwhacker  he  was  nearly  al- 
ways an  invisible  foe,  shooting  his  arrows  or 
his  gun  from  behind  a  rock,  or  from  the  top  of 
a  bluff,  well  out  of  range  himself.  AVhen  the 
Indians  were  known  to  be  following  an  outfit 
it  was  common  practice  to  keep  a  couple  of 
horsemen  outriders  on  each  side  of  the  train 
where  possible.  Frequently  bull  trains  were 
obliged  to  corral  and  put  up  a  fight,  and  usu- 
ally the  Indian  lost. 


Hunton  and  Clay 
Bull-Train  Magnates 


CHAPTER  III 

HUNTON    AND    ClAY,    BuLL-TrAIN    MAGNATES. 

AMONG  the  bull-train  magnates  of  the 
early  70 's  were  Charley  Clay,  said  to  be  a 
relative  of  the  famous  statesman,  and  Jack 
Hunton.  They  were  pioneers  of  Wyoming  who 
have  no  doubt  been  quite  forgotten,  though  in 
their  day  none  in  the  then  sparsely  settled 
frontier  territory  was  better  known.  They 
were  not  only  pioneer  freighters,  but  among 
the  very  first  of  the  daring  frontiersmen  to  go 
beyond  the  limits  of  civilization,  and  into  the 
stamping  grounds  of  the  warlike  tribes  of  In- 
dians to  establish  homes.  Both  built  ranches 
in  the  Chugwater  country  along  the  trail  lead- 
ing from  Cheyenne  to  Fort  Laramie.  Clay's 
log  house  was  directly  under  one  of  the  fa- 
mous landmarks  of  the  territory — chimney 
rock — a  chalky  butte  formed,  geologists  say,  by 
erosion.  Hunton  built  his  ranch  on  the  north- 
west end  of  the  Chugwater  at  a  point  near 
Goshen's  Hole,  a  great  basin,  where  the  Lara- 
mie trail  wheeled  directly  north  to  Eagle's 
Nest,  another  butte.  At  Hunton 's  a  trail  less 
used  branched  off  to  the  northwest,  across 
what  was  then  considered  a  desert  and  reach- 
ing Fort  Fetterman,  perhaps  125  miles  away 
on  the  North  Platte  river  at  Lapariel  creek. 


46  The  Prairie   Schooner 

This  part  of  Wyoming  is  now,  I  understand,  a 
vast  wheatfield.  To  a  bullwhacker  of  the  early 
70 's  this  is  almost  a  miracle. 

Both  Hunton  and  Clay  used  their  ranches 
to  range  their  work  cattle  in  off  seasons,  al- 
though both  had  beef  herds  and  lots  of  horses. 
These  ranch  houses  were  protected  from  In- 
dians by  less  than  a  dozen  men  at  any  time; 
but  these  men  were  fighters  and  were  known 
to  be  such  by  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes  that  fre- 
quently roamed  the  territory  south  of  the 
Platte,  although  in  a  treaty  with  the  Federal 
government  they  had  promised  to  stay  north 
of  the  famous  stream,  the  consideration  being, 
on  the  part  of  Uncle  Sam,  a  contribution  of 
hundreds  of  tons  of  flour,  bacon,  tobacco  and 
other  things.  Strictly  speaking,  this  food  was 
in  payment  for  land  south  of  the  Platte. 

Both  Hunton  and  Clay  had  a  knack  of  deal- 
ing with  these  roaming  bands,  however,  that 
prevented  any  serious  raids,  although  at  one 
time,  Mdien  Clay  had  closed  a  contract  with 
the  government  and  found  himself  in  Chey- 
enne with  his  big  bull  outfit,  consisting  of  a 
couple  of  hundred  head  of  oxen  and  thirty  or 
forty  men,  word  -was  brought  to  liim  that  on 
his  return  trip  to  his  Chugwater  quarters,  a 
band  of  Sioux  Avould  attack  him.  So  he  left 
Cheyenne  one  night,  and  taking  a  course  almost 
due  east  avoided  the  Laramie  trail,  and  by  a 
circuitous  route  reached  the  Chugwater  with- 
out having  traveled  a  mile  on  a  trail. 

TTnnton's  and  ClaA'-'s  ranch  houses  were  load- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  47 

ed  with  firearms,  looked  Uke  armories,  and 
at  the  height  of  the  shoulder  in  the  log  walls 
were  fort  holes  through  which  guns  could  be 
fired.  These  were  used  several  times,  but  noiie 
of  the  skirmishes  approached  in  any  degree 
the  present-day  pictures  one  sees  in  the  movies, 
and  I  doubt  if  they  ever  did,  in  the  West.  In 
the  first  place,  while  the  Sioux,  Cheyenne  and 
other  redskins  were  considered  especially 
bloodthirsty,  none  of  them  was  fond  of  expos- 
ing his  worthless  carcass  to  a  shower  of  bul- 
lets, even  though  outnumbering  the  whites  100 
to  1.  The  Indian  of  that  day — of  the  day  that 
history  was  making  on  the  frontier — was  a 
most  miserable  coward  when  dealing  with 
frontiersmen  of  the  Hunton  or  Clay  calibre. 

Of  course,  there  were  open  battles  with 
United  States  troops,  but  even  then  only  when, 
as  in  the  case  of  Custer  and  his  Seventh  Cav- 
alry, the  troops  were  outnumbered  and 
trapped.  Even  Sitting  Bull's  band,  which  has 
wrongly  been  represented  by  some  historians 
as  brave,  were  entitled  to  no  credit  of  that 
kind.  Cnster  was  trapped  in  a  big  bowl  and 
his  300-odd  fighters  surrounded  on  all  sides  by 
several  thousand  well  mounted  and  well- 
armed  young  bucks.  The  Custer  and  the  ear- 
lier so-called  Indian  battles  both  at  old  Fort 
Phil  Kearney  and  earlier  in  Minnesota,  were  not 
battles  at  all — simply  massacres.  There  is  no 
record  of  an  even  fight  between  redskins  and 
whites  in  the  settlement  of  the  country  be- 
tween the  Missouri  Kiver  and  the  Eoekj'  ^Moun- 


48  The  Prairie  Schooner 

tains.  The  Modocs  fought  for  months  in  the 
lava  beds,  but  seldom  did  a  soldier  see  a  Mo- 
doc. So  it  was  with  old  Geronomo  and  his 
Apache  followers.  They  fought  from  cover, 
never  in  the  open  unless  overtaken  and  sur- 
rounded. 

Nevertheless,  the  raiding  bands  of  Ogalala 
Sioux  that  slipped  over  the  Platte  in  the  sea- 
son of  good  grass  were  a  problem  for  these 
pioneer  ranchmen  and  transportation  outfits, 
and  it  Avas  not  an  uncommon  thing  for  a  bullet 
or  an  arrow  to  reach  a  vital  spot  in  a  bull- 
whacker  from  some  hiding  place  just  in  range 
of  the  road.  When  this  happened  it  was  the 
common  practice  for  members  of  the  outfit  to 
mount  their  saddle  horses,  with  which  every 
bull-train  was  Avell  supplied,  and  give  chase 
unless  the  lead  of  the  Indians  was  too  great, 
and  usually  it  was. 

Once  in  a  while,  however,  the  Indian  made 
a  miscalculation,  and  the  buUwhacker  would 
return  to  the  temporarily  corralled  outfit  with 
a  scrubb}^  Indian  pony,  a  few  raAvhide  thongs, 
and  an  Indian's  ear  freshly  amputated  for  use 
as  evidence  at  the  first  camp  of  bullwhackers 
or  army  post  that  one  more  "Good  Indian" 
had  been  put  on  the  list. 

This  cutting  off  of  ears  was  reprisal,  for  the 
Indians  scalped  their  white  victims  and  muti- 
lated their  bodies  when  they  had  a  chance. 
ITunton  and  Clay  hauled  with  their  big  out- 
fits, at  one  time,  about  everything  that  was 
sent  to   the   northern   line   of   forts  bv  Uncle 


The  Prairie  Schooner  49 

Sam.  Clay's  contracts  were  largely  confined 
to  Fort  Laramie,  although  Hunton  hanled  a 
good  deal  of  the  provisions  to  that  post.  Ilun- 
ton  and  others  supplied  Fort  Fetterman,  the 
principal  route  being  from  Medicine  Bow  sta- 
tion on  the  Union  Pacific  across  the  mountain 
range  of  the  same  name. 

It  took  several  days  to  load  the  prairie 
schooners  from  the  freight  cars  on  a  sidetrack 
that  was  laid  upon  the  sod ;  and  while  this  work 
was  going  on  there  was  sometimes  a  good  deal 
of  drinking  and  many  gun  fights. 

It  was  while  a  bull  outfit  was  loading  for 
one  of  the  fall  trips  to  Fetterman  that  the 
first  billiard  table  came  to  Medicine  Bow.  I 
think  it  was  the  only  one  in  the  territory  out- 
side of  Cheyenne  and  Laramie  City,  both  divi- 
sion points  on  the  Union  Pacific.  There  were 
no  women  in  Medicine  Bow,  good  or  bad,  at 
the  time  and  not  more  than  100  regular  resi- 
dents, yet  the  town  had  a  saloon  because  the 
bull  outfits,  Hunton 's  and  others,  in  their  occa- 
sional trips,  and  a  few  adventurers  who  were 
prospecting  south  and  west  of  the  "Bow,"  fur- 
nished ample  patronage  to  make  the  enter- 
prise profitable.  It  was  this  saloonkeeper  who 
conceived  the  idea  of  importing  a  billiard  table, 
and  also  a  back  bar  and  mirror. 

The  buUwhackers  Avatched  the  installation 
of  the  new  furniture,  and  that  night  informed 
the  saloonkeeper  that  as  there  were  no  women 
in  the  camp  it  had  been  decided  to  have  a 
stag  dance  in  the  saloon.    He  protested,  but  it 


50  Tlie  Prairie  Schooner 

did  no  good.  A  few  drinks  in  a  dozen  leaders 
was  followed  by  a  deliberately  aimed  shot 
which  shattered  the  mirror,  after  which  the 
operation  of  removing  the  billiard  table  be- 
gan. It  was  a  rough  job,  and  would  have 
given  a  Brunswick-Balke  man  a  chill.  The 
table  went  out  onto  the  prairie  in  sections,  and 
the  sections  were  not  always  separated  at  the 
regulation  point.     The  green  cover  was  rained. 

Then  the  dance  began.  The  German  saloon- 
keeper smiled  his  protests,  but  when  he  be- 
came too  much  concerned  about  what  was  go- 
ing on,  someone  would  snuff  a  light  or  plug  a 
barrel  of  whisky  with  a  bullet.  So  the  night's 
debauch  continued,  and  it  did  not  end  until 
daybreak.  The  place  was  a  wreck,  and  the 
saloonkeeper  was  in  despair  when  the  wagon 
boss  came  along  with  a  roll  of  money  as  big 
around  as  a  ship's  cable,  saying: 

"What's  the  damage,  Fritz?" 

"Ach,"  he  replied,  "the  table  cost  me  $500; 
a  barrel  of  whisky  and  cigars,  beer,  my  fine 
mirror — everj^thing  is  gone?" 

"Yes.  I  see.  the  whole  bizness,"  said  the 
boss. 

"Well,"  said  Fritz,  "the  boys  spent  $600 
mit  me,  so  I  make  it  $600  more ;  maybe  I  can 
repair  the  table." 

So  the  bill  was  paid,  the  wagons  were  loaded, 
and  the  outfit  sallied  forth  across  the  plains, 
the  bridgeless  rivers,  and  the  mountain  passes 
to  Fetterman  where  there  was  a  pay-day.  De- 
ductions pro-rata  were  made  from  every  man's 


The  Prairie  Schooner  51 

wage  to  even  up  the  score  with  Fritz,  and 
every  bullwhacker  paid  his  share  willingly, 
saying  it  was  cheap  sport  for  the  price.  There 
was  no  feeling  against  Fritz  because  Fritz  had 
not  shown  fight.  If  he  had — well,  most  of  the 
men  in  the  outfit  were  wild  and  woolly,  and 
rough,  but  not  killers.  Still  one  or  two  could 
not  be  trusted. 

Hunton  put  up  a  log  house,  a  forge  and  a 
charcoal  kiln  just  outside  the  south  limit  of 
the  Fort  Fetterman  government  reserve,  a  sec- 
tion five  miles  square  south  of  the  Platte.  Just 
before  this  plant  was  erected  a  series  of  Indian 
depredations  began ;  several  men  engaged  in 
cord  wood  chopping  for  a  government  con- 
tractor were  murdered  by  small  bands  of  Sioux, 
and  many  saddle  horses  stolen.  There  were 
also  several  raids  in  the  Lapariel  bottoms ;  and 
one  day  a  small  band  of  Sioux,  well  mounted, 
forded  the  Platte  almost  in  sight  of  the  fort, 
stampeded  a  herd  of  mules  and  drove  them  far 
into  the  Indian  country  before  a  company  of 
soldiers  took  up  the  chase, 

A  military  telegraph  line  ran  from  Fort  Fet- 
terman to  Fort  D.  A.  Russell  at  Cheyenne,  and 
the  northwestern  end  of  the  line  was  down 
most  of  the  time,  the  Indians  taking  the  wire 
away  to  use  in  ear  and  nose  rings  and  for 
other  purposes,  although  the  line  Avas  de- 
stroyed many  times,  no  doubt,  for  pure  cussed- 
ness.  One  time  I  traveled  for  fifty  miles  on 
horseback  along  this  telegraph  line,  and  in 
places  the  Avires  were  connected  with  insula- 


52  The  Prairie   Schooner 

tors  which  were  mounted  on  buffalo  horns.    In 
many  places  the  wire  was  on  the  ground. 

It  was  said  at  the  time  of  the  running  off 
of  the  mules  that  the  Fort  Fetterman  com- 
mandant was  unable  to  follow  the  Indians 
without  orders  from  Washington  via  Fort  Rus- 
sell. However,  this  was  not  confirmed.  Any- 
way, on  this  and  many  other  occasions  the 
army  moved  slowly  and  was  past  understand- 
ing on  the  part  of  the  few  citizens  in  the  coun- 
try. Nevertheless,  the  soldiers  of  those  days, 
whenever  in  conflict  with  the  redskins,  usually 
gave  a  good  account  of  themselves. 

Things  got  so  warm  one  spring  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  Fort  Fetterman  that  the  thirty  or  forty 
citizens  camping  outside  the  military  reserva- 
tion organized  a  secret  society  known  as  the 
Buckskin  Militia,  and  determined  to  avenge 
the  deaths  of  several  men,  Jesse  Hammond,  a 
woodchopper,  and  others,  if  opportunity  should 
present  itself.  The  only  qualification  for  mem- 
bership in  the  Buckskins  was  a  willingness  to 
take  the  oath,  which  was  as  follows: 

I,  John  Smith,  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will 
shoot  on  sight  any  male  Indian,  no  matter  whether 
he  is  attacking  me  or  other  white  men,  stealing 
or  attempting  to  steal  my  property  or  the  property 
of  others,  or  whether  he  is  approaching  or  moving 
from  me.  Furthermore,  I  will  answer  any  call 
from  another  member  of  this  band  or  any  other 
good  white  citizen,  for  assistance  in  the  destruction 
of  any  male  Indian  found  on  the  south  side  of  the 
North  Platte  river;  and  will  join  in  any  raid  upon 
an  Indian  camp  when  called  upon  by  the  Chief 
Buckskin.     So  help  me  God. 


The  Prairie  Schooner  53 

This  oath  was  taken  while  standing  on  the 
stump  of  a  Cottonwood  tree  in  the  Lapariel 
bottoms,  the  candidate  being  loaded  down  with 
as  many  log  chains  as  he  could  hold,  and  the 
ceremony,  usually  taken  on  a  moonlight  night, 
was  as  Aveird  a  sight  as  one  can  imagine. 

The  raids  from  the  north  continued  nearly 
all  summer.  Several  more  white  men  were 
killed,  one  a  lone  prospector  who  thought  there 
was  mineral  in  the  hills  southwest  of  Fort  Fet- 
terman  and  near  old  Fort  Caspar. 

One  of  the  Buckskins  hunting  antelope  one 
day  in  the  vicinity  of  La  Bonte  Creek  crossed 
the  trail  of  a  single  tepee  or  family,  and  three 
ponies.  This  he  knew  from  the  lodge  pole 
tracks  made  by  a  horse  dragging  the  poles 
over  the  ground.  The  Buckskin  took  the  trail, 
keeping  well  out  of  sight,  but  finally  cut  otf 
a  lone  Indian  who  had  dismounted  to  drink 
from  a  spring,  allowing  his  young  buck  sons 
to  go  on.  Buckskin  whistled  to  give  his  quarry 
the  chance  he  would  give  a  mad  dog — and  no 
more.  Then  he  put  a  bullet  in  his  head.  He 
remained  on  the  spot  from  which  he  fired, 
waiting  to  hear  from  the  rest  of  the  tepee, 
which  he  did  in  a  few  minutes,  although  the 
young  bucks  kept  out  of  sight.  They  fired  a 
few  shots  before  Buckskin  decided  to  make  a 
dash,  and  when  he  did  it  was  a  race  of  ten 
miles  to  a  ford  in  the  Platte.  The  young  bucks 
escaped.  Buckskin  returned  to  his  "Good  In- 
dian." removed  a  lock  of  his  hair,  took  his 
gun  and  ammunition  and  a  greasy  card  from 


a 

w 

X 

u 

o 


The  Prairie  Schooner  55 

the  folds  of  his  blanket  upon  which  some  white 
man  liacl  written  : 

This  is  Cut  Nose,  a  "Good" 

Sioux  Indian;  but  he  is  a 

Murderer    and    Thief. 

There  was  a  big  session  of  the  Buckskin  Mi- 
litia a  few  nights  later,  and  great  rejoicing. 
Cut  Nose  was  a  whole  tribe  of  Indians  in  him- 
self, and  many  dark  crimes  had  been  laid  at 
his  door  by  the  white  men  who  were  engaged 
in  freighting  food  to  the  Indian  agencies  and 
army  posts. 

It  must  be  understood  that  there  were  no 
settlers  or  settlements  or  families  in  this  sec- 
tion of  Wyoming  at  this  time,  therefore  there 
were  never  any  of  those  horrible  affairs  com- 
mon farther  East  a  hundred  years  or  more 
ago.  There  were  no  women  and  children  for 
these  red  devils  to  kill,  and  year  in  and  year 
out  the  fight  was  between  bullwhackers,  a  few 
ranchmen,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen,  govern- 
ment woodchoppers,  and  a  few  prospectors. 

The  professional  hunters  usually  "stood  in" 
with  the  red  man,  being  possessed  of  some  kind 
of  magic  that  was  never  fully  explained.  In 
those  days  beaver,  bear,  buffalo,  deer,  ante- 
lope and  other  game  abounded.  The  hunter 
usually  had  a  hut  or  "dug-out"  near  a  beaver 
dam,  and  it  usually  was  well  supplied  with 
food  and  sometimes  a  squaw  was  the  hunter's 
companion.  Her  relatives  were  sure  of  good 
treatment,  and  I  presume  for  that  reason  the 
relatives  were  able  to  give  the  "squaw  man" 


56  The  Prairie  Schooner 

hunter  protection.  Still  Imnters  were  mur- 
dered, but  not  often. 

Finally,  along  in  July,  after  the  grass  had 
lost  its  sap  and  turned  brown,  one  of  the  Buck- 
skins saddled  up  his  pinto  horse  one  day, 
strapped  a  blanket,  a  pone  of  bread  and  a 
piece  of  bacon  to  his  saddle,  and  giving  free 
play  to  his  Rowell  spur,  waved  his  hat  and 
yelled  as  he  dashed  away: 

"Good-bye,  boys;  see  you  again  in  a  few 
days.    I'm  goin'  to  put  an  end  to  these  raids." 

His  brother  Buckskins  thought  he  was 
crazy — some  of  them  did.  But  one  or  two 
winked  and  looked  wise;  and  about  sixty 
hours  later,  when  some  of  the  "militia"  had 
almost  forgotten  him,  Buckskin  rode  up,  un- 
saddled his  pinto,  punched  him  in  the  ribs  and 
said:  "There  now.  old  boy,  go  up  the  creek 
and  enjoy  yourself.  Eat  yourself  to  death, 
and  I'll  know  where  to  find  you  when  I  want 
you.    No  Indian  will  get  you." 

When  the  boys  crowded  around  him  he 
vouchsafed  this  much  information : 

"From  a  point  twenty  miles  east  of  this  spot 
to  a  spot  twenty  miles  west  of  Fort  Laramie — 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Platte — as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach  in  a  northerly  direction,  and  you 
know  that's  considerable  distance,  there  is  just 
one  charred  mass — every  blade  of  grass  has 
been  burned." 

There  was  no  more  trouble  that  season.  No 
feed  for  the  Indian  ponies  within  a  hundred 
miles  of  the  fort  to  the  north  of  the  river. 


Guarding  an  Overland 
Freight  Outfit 


CHAPTER  IV 
Guarding  an  Overland  Freight  Outfit. 

DRIVING  seven  yoke  of  oxen  hauling  two 
wagons  attached  by  a  short  rig  similar  to 
that  used  in  coupling  cars,  along  a  desert  road, 
is  enough  to  keep  an  able-bodied  ox-train 
brakeniau  busy.  But  when,  in  addition  to 
keeping  his  wild  "leaders"  in  the  road  and  his 
"wheelers"  filling  their  yokes,  he  has  to  keep 
an  eye  on  a  distant  bad  land  bluff  or  a  roll 
in  the  surface,  he  has  his  hands  more  than  full. 

This  was  the  situation  Avhen  the  bull  outfit, 
from  Cheyenne  to  Spotted  Tail,  was  slowly 
moving  along  north  of  the  Platte  river  in 
August,  1875 — a  time  when  Red  Cloud  and 
Spotted  Tail  agencies  were  nearly  deserted, 
and  all  the  young  bucks  were  chasing  antelope 
and  incidentally  collecting  scalps  of  white  men 
when  they  could  find  a  Avhite  man  alone  and 
unprepared  to  defend  himself;  or  when  they 
could  outnumber  a  bull  outfit  one  hundred  or 
two  hundred  to  one  and  get  its  members  in 
a  "pocket,"  which  was  not  often. 

At  this  particular  time  a  young  man  who,  a 
couple  of  years  previous,  had  never  known 
anything  less  comfortable  than  a  feather  bed, 
or  a  job  harder  than  writing  railroad  way- 
bills,   was    one    of   two    in    the    cross-country 


60  The  Prairie   Schooner 

freighter  crew  who  had  been  assigned  by  Wag- 
onboss  Watson  to  mount  a  "pinto"  pony  and 
ride  all  day  at  least  1,0(X)  yards  away  from  the 
trail  and  keep  to  the  high  places  where  he 
could  see  what  was  going  on,  if  anything,  in 
the  .vicinity.  He  had  been  told  to  dismount 
and  examine  any  signs  of  life  on  the  ground 
where  it  was  bare,  or  in  the  grass,  and  when 
found  to  fire  one  shot  from  his  revolver  to  let 
the  bullwhackers  know  that  they  had  "com- 
pany" not  far  off;  and  if  he  saw  one  Indian 
or  a  hundred  to  shoot  not  once  but  three  times 
in  rapid  succession  and  then  gallop  to  the 
wagon  train  with  details. 

The  movement  across  the  desert-like  country 
this  day  began  at  four  a.  m.,  and  continued  un- 
til ten  a.  m.  The  feather-bed  youngster  was 
well  equipped  with  an  army  Springfield  of 
large  calibre,  forty  rounds  in  his  belt,  two 
Remington  revolvers  and  a  butcher  knife  with 
a  five-inch  blade  for  the  possibility  of  close 
quarters.  He  had  a  bottle  of  spring  water  and 
a  saddlebag  full  of  sandwiches  of  bread  and 
fried  sowbelly  and  plenty  of  chewing  and 
smoking  tobacco. 

]\Iaybe  you  think  this  youngster  thought  of 
his  soft  bed  at  home  or  a  pot  shot  from  am- 
bush that  would  leave  his  skeleton  bleaching 
in  a  sandy  desert  sun  after  it  had  been  stripped 
of  its  flesh  by  wolves ;  or  that  he  wished  some- 
one else  had  been  chosen  to  guard  one  side  of 
the  overland  train  of  flour,  bacon,  corn  and 
sugar  and  its  custodians,  but  that  is  not  so. 


The  Prairie  Schooner  01 

It  was  one  of  the  proudest  clays  of  his  life  and 
I  know  he  will  never  forget  it.  lie  was  highly 
honored  by  Watson  and  he  apj^reciated  it,  for 
the  reason  that  only  two  years  before  he  had 
come  to  AVyoming  a  green  city  boy  and  was 
then  known  in  the  parlance  of  the  plains  as  a 
' '  tenderfoot, ' '  which  was  a  truthful  description 
of  any  man  or  boy  when  he  first  entered  upon 
the  life  of  the  buUwhacker,  the  then  popular 
master  of  transportation  between  civilization 
and  its  outposts.  He  never  dreamed  of  death 
when  he  got  his  orders,  because  he  w^as  young 
and  foolish.  Sometimes  it  is  called  bravery, 
l)ut  that  isn't  the  right  word.  It  can't  be  de- 
scribed unless  it  is  called  blind  or  reckless  in- 
lifference.  Perhaps  that  isn't  it;  anyway  the 
youngster,  as  he  mounted  and  galloped  away 
and  waited  on  a  neighboring  knoll  for  the  out- 
fit to  string  out  along  the  sandy  trail,  hoped 
he  wouldn't  be  disappointed.  He  wanted  an 
eventful  day  and  he  fairly  prayed  for  it.  "I 
hope,"  he  ruminated  to  himself  half  aloud, 
"that  I  cross  a  tepee  trail,  at  least,  even  if  I 
don't  get  my  eye  on  an  Indian." 

It  wasn't  long  until  he  began  to  wonder,  for 
it  was  still  barely  daylight,  if  it  wouldn't  be 
possible  for  a  buck  of  good  aim  to  pick  him 
off,  especially  if  the  buck  practiced  the  usual 
tactics  of  concealing  himself  behind  a  sand- 
dune  or  a  butte.  He  wasn't  afraid — he  didn't 
know  the  Avord — but  he  wondered.  For  this 
reason  he  kept  his  pony  moving,  reasoning  that 
it  is  easier  to  hit  a  stationary  target  than  a 


62  The  Prairie  Schooner 

swiftly  whirling  one.  But  the  pony  appeared 
to  be  a  dead  one  even  when  a  spur  was  roughly 
rubbed  upon  his  belly,  until,  as  the  train  had 
gotten  well  out  of  camp  and  the  teams  strung 
along  for  a  mile,  he  found  his  pony  to  be  inter- 
ested in  something,  for  he  insisted  on  frequent 
stops  and  moved  liis  ears  back  and  forward 
and  snorted  lightly. 

Finally  it  seemed  next  to  impossible  to  get 
him  to  move,  and  Featherbed  was  sure  the 
pony  had  been  owned  by  Indians  at  some  time 
and  was  of  the  trick  variety,  being  trained  to 
a  brand*  of  treachery  that  meant  delivery  of 
his  mount  into  the  hands  of  the  reds. 

And  while  these  things  were  passing  through 
the  youngster's  brain  his  only  concern  was 
that  the  train  M^as  leaving  him.  and  that  he 
was  not  guarding  it.  H'e  heard  a  coyote's 
mournful  note,  but  that  was  a  common  occur- 
rence, although  he  wondered  if  it  couldn't  be 
possible  that  an  Indian  was  doing  the  howling. 
It  sounded  like  an  imitation. 

The  pony  snorted  some  more,  and  then 
Featherbed,  finding  his  blunt  pointed  spurs 
were  not  getting  him  anywhere,  unsheathed  his 
butcher-knife  and  j^ricked  his  cayuse  on  the 
back.  He  tried  to  buck,  but  he  Avore  a  double 
cinch — one  fore  and  one  aft— and  it  kept  him 
on  all  fours. 

Things  were  getting  worse  and  the  voices 
of  the  bulhvhackers  yelling  at  their  teams 
grew  fainter  and  fainter  as  the  outfit  slowly 
but   surely   put   distance   between   Featherbed 


The  Prairie   Schooner  63 

and  his  companion,  when  there  Avas  a  sound 
that  resembled  the  dropping  of  a  stick  in  the 
water  preceded  by  a  distinct  swish  as  if  it  had 
been  thrown  through  the  air  like  a  boomerang. 

Then  the  pinto  got  busy.     It  was  an  arroAV ! 

There  were  several  more,  and  one  of  them 
clipped  the  pommel  of  the  saddle  before 
Featherbed  thought  of  his  orders  to  fire  once 
on  sight  of  disturbed  grass  or  a  moccasin  track 
on  bare  ground ;  or,  upon  sighting  an  Indian, 
to  fire  three  times. 

Then  he  let  go  with  his  Springfield  in  the 
supposed  direction  of  the  enemy,  and  headed 
for  the  trail,  which  he  readily  found,  and  soon 
caught  up  with  the  mess-wagon  which  always 
formed  the  rear  guard  with  one  whacker,  the 
night  herder  inside,  and  the  extra  herd  horses 
tied  behind.  Featherbed  met  Watson  gallop- 
ing toward  the  rear. 

"What  is  it,  boy?"  he  shouted. 

"They  got  a  piece  of  my  Texas  pommel," 
he  replied,  "but  I  don't  know  where  the  arrow 
came  from.    I'll  go  back  and  see." 

He  wheeled  his  pony  to  go  and  would  have 
been  off  to  take  up  his  station  a  thousand 
.yards  from  the  trail  had  not  AVatson  said, 
laughingly : 

"You're  crazy — wait  a  minute  till  I  send 
word  up  ahead  to  corral." 

"You  (to  the  mess  w^agon  driver)  untie 
them  bosses,  saddle   'em  up  and  wait  for  Blu- 


64  The  Prairie   Schooner 

elier  Brown  and  Archer;  they'll  be  back  in  a 
minute." 

Featherbed,  as  the  sun  peeped  over  a  rise  in 
the  land,  waited  impatiently.  So  did  the  pony, 
for  the  miserable  Indian-bred  cuss  had  a  good 
nose  that  was  keen  to  the  smoky  smell  of  an 
Indian,  or  to  the  odor  of  another  horse,  espcr 
cially  of  his  own  breed,  and  he  was  all  ani- 
mation and  ready  to  go. 

When  the  party  finally  got  away  AVatson, 
turning  to  Featherbed  as  they  galloped  side 
by  side  along  the  high  spots  near  the  back 
trail,  said : 

"If  yer  not  afraid,  pull  out  ahead  with  that 
pony  and  lead  the  way." 

Featherbed  pressed  the  Eowell  spur  to  the 
pony's  side  and  he  responded  like  a  real  cow- 
pony,  much  to  Featherbed 's  surj^rise,  and  be- 
fore Watson  could  gather  his  breath  to  call 
the  youngster  back  he  led  them  by  200  yards. 
Finally  he  did  manage  to  yell  between  his 
laughter : 

"Hold  on,  you  danged  idiot  —  I  didn't 
mean — 

But  he  didn't  finish  the  sentence,  although 
he  continued  yelling,  this  time  expressing  him- 
self to  the  effect : 

"My  boss  has  been  creased  in  the  neck — dis- 
mount, give  me  your  boss  and  lead  mine  back 
to  the  outfit;  we'll  take  care  of  these  galoots." 

Featherbed  protested,  but  it  was  no  use,  and 
he  returned  and  joined  the  whackers  who  had 
corralled    and    gathered    the    bulls    inside    the 


The  Prairie  Schooner  65 

wagons,  forming  two  half  circles  on  a  high 
spot  near  the  trail.  There  were  several  other 
horses  in  the  outfit,  so  Featherbed  quickly 
slipped  the  boss'  fine  $200  rig  on  the  back  of 
a  buckskin  of  the  cow-puncher  variety  and 
sped  back  to  the  scene  of  action. 

But  it  was  all  over.  The  sneaking  Indians 
had  disappeared,  and  the  only  evidence  of 
their  presence  was  a  spot  of  crumpled  grass 
behind  a  knoll  where  several  of  them  had  lain 
in  complete  safety  while  they  tried  to  send 
Featherbed  to  the  Happy  Hunting  Clround. 

The  sun  was  too  high  for  the  Indians,  so 
they  disappeared,  skulking  at  safe  distance  to 
Avait  for  darkness  and  perhaps  other  prey. 

Featherbed,  after  another  shift  of  mounts 
and  saddles  and  bridles,  again  took  his  post 
1,000  yards  from  the  trail,  smoked  his  pipe, 
munched  his  sandwiches  and  drank  the  spring 
water. 

At  ten  o'clock  camp  was  struck  for  the  mid- 
day stop  close  to  a  creek  of  sweet  cold  water 
that  ran  through  some  small  hills  covered  with 
stunted  pines,  a  few  miles  from  a  range  of 
black  mountains  out  of  the  bad  lands  and 
sand. 

Featherbed  was  here  promoted  to  the  posi- 
tion of  assistant  wagon  boss,  presented  with  a 
big  sorrel  horse  called  "America"  (because  he 
was  not  Indian-bred)  and  given  the  lead  team 
to  drive  in  the  outfit.  This  meant  that,  in  co- 
operation with  the  "big  boss,"  he  would  help 
select    the    camps,   govern    the    speed  of  the 


66  The  Prairie  Schooner 

"train,"  look  after  the  manifests,  act  as  check 
clerk  in  loading  and  unloading,  and  besides 
wear  a  red  sash  to  designate  his  official  posi- 
tion. 

Featherbed  took  his  honors  modestly,  in  fact 
he  was  surprised  and  couldn't  understand  it 
until  someone  told  him  the  "old  man"  was 
pleased  when  he  (Featherbed)  took  the  wound- 
ed horse  back  to  the  train,  saddled  up  another 
and  returned  to  help  find  where  the  arrows 
came  from. 


Rattlesnakes  and  Redskins 


CHAPTER  V 

Rattlesnakes  and  Redskins. 

THE  night-herder's  song  awoke  me  at  four 
a.  m. — the  first  streak  of  day — and  I  didn't 
have  time  to  piill  on  my  boots  before  the  bulls 
were  inside  the  corral ;  so,  in  bare  feet,  I  yoked 
my  fourteen  head  and  then  proceeded  to  pull 
on  the  cowhides,  roll  up  my  blankets  and 
throw  them  on  my  trail  wagon.  Due  to  the 
haste — for  nearly  everyone  else  in  the  outfit 
was  ready  to  "pull  out"  in  response  to  the 
assistant  wagon  boss'  order — I  proceeded  to 
pull  on  the  left  boot  without  the  usual  precau- 
tions. My  fingers  were  in  the  straps  as  I  sat 
on  the  ground,*  and  in  another  minute  my 
toes  would  have  been  in  the  boot.  But  the 
rattler  that  had  spent  the  night  in  it  stuck  out 
his  head.  I  shook  him  out,  first  calling  my 
pard  to  come  with  his  whip. 

After  the  rattler  was  dead  I  plucked  off 
eleven  beautifully  graduated  white  rattles  and 
a  black  button,  later  on  adding  them  to  a  hat- 
band of  several  hundred  which  I  had  sewn  to- 


*This  was  in  the  center  of  a  prairie  dog  town 
covering  perhaps  twenty  acres;  and  the  "town" 
was  inhabited  not  only  by  these  marmots  but  rab- 
bits, owls  and  rattlesnakes,  apparently  living  in 
perfect  peace  and  harmony  in  the  same  burrows. 


70  The  Prairie   Schooner 

gether,  using  silk  thread  and  a  cambric  needle. 
The  other  boot  was  tenantless. 

The  blankets,  in  a  neat  roll  secured  by  a 
heavy  leather  strap,  were  thrown  on  top  of 
the  freight  in  the  trailer,  and  away  we  went 
for  a  dry  camp  in  the  bad  lands,  w4iere  we 
spent  six  hours  of  the  middle  of  the  day  hid- 
ing under  our  Avagons  to  escape  the  hot  rays 
of  the  sun. 

A  late  afternoon  start  ended  at  nine  p.  m., 
in  a  moonlit  camp  on  a  creek  that  ran  swiftly 
through  chalk-like  bluffs — perhaps  the  head- 
waters of  the  Niobrara  river.  In  those  days 
none  but  a  geographer  or  a  government  sur- 
veyor knew  the  names  of  many  of  the  water- 
ways, if  they  had  names.  It  had  been  a  hard 
drive  through  deep  sand  most  of  the  way,  and 
after  the  bulls  had  been  relieved  of  their  yokes 
and  the  chains  that  held  the  teams  together, 
all  hands  raced  for  the  water,  both  for  inter- 
nal and  external  purposes. 

Our  night  camp  was  on  a  flat  between  the 
bluffs  and  a  few  yards  from  the  stream  in  a 
most  inviting  spot,  the  edge  of  the  crooked 
channel  being  lined  with  stunted  and  gnarled 
box-elder,  while  farther  back  were  a  few  dozen 
dead  and  gaunt  eottonwoods.  Some  small 
bushes  grew  in  clumps  here  and  there,  but  our 
camp  commanded  a  good  view,  even  in  the 
night,  of  the  country  for  a  mile  in  at  least  two 
directions — north  and  south. 

Though  tired,  it  was  too  nice  a  night  even 
in  this  wilderness  to  go  to  bed;  for  a  young- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  71 

ster  who  had  ac(|uii'ed  two  revolvers,  a  Win- 
chester rifle,  a  butcher  knife  and  other  wea- 
pons believed  the  crampled  grass  he  had  seen 
at  the  edge  of  the  creek  indicated  the  pres- 
ence not  far  away  of  others  of  the  human 
family,  and  he  intended  to  find  out  about  it. 
He  had  confided  this  suspicion  to  one  other 
youth  of  the  outfit,  and  as  the  supper  campfire 
died  down  to  a  bed  of  coals  and  a  cool  wind 
began  to  fan, the  hot  earth  these  boys  stole 
out  of  camp,  waded  the  creek,  and  carefully 
examined  the  earth  up  and  down  its  margin 
until  they  came  upon  a  distinct  moccasin,  pony 
and  lodge  pole  trail.  They  followed  it  along 
the  bottoms  for  two  miles  to  a  jutting  bluff 
where  around  the  corner  they  saw  six  tepees, 
near  which  were  picketed  several  ponies. 

All  was  silent  as  the  boys,  concealed  in  a 
safe  spot,  viewed  the  scene.  Then  there  was  a 
sound,  low  at  first,  like  the  crooning  of  a  moth- 
er to  a  babe,  which  grew  louder  and  louder, 
until  finally  there  emerged  from  one  of  the 
tepees  a  big  buck  who  stood  silently  for  a  full 
minute,  listening.  He  wore  nothing  but  a 
breech-clout,  and  over  his  shoulder  hung  a 
buck-skin  strap  upon  which  was  attached  the 
arrows  for  the  big  bow  held  in  his  hand.  He 
did  wear  a  bonnet  and  it  consisted  principally 
of  feathers  that  looked  exactly  like  some  of 
the  creations  worn  by  women  of  the  present 
day. 

When  he  had  located  the  sound  he  moved 
toward   the   hiding   boys   but   stopped   at   the 


72  The  Prairie   Schooner 

nearest  tepee.  Tlie  crooning  grew  to  a  lamen- 
tation. Then  other  tepees  showed  signs  of 
life,  and  in  a  few  moments  bncks,  squaws  and 
papooses  were  running  hitiier  and  thither  in 
a  bewildering  way.  But  the  boys  remained 
silent,  for  there  was  no  sign  of  a  movement  of 
camp  and  not  an  indication  that  there  was  an 
outside  alarm.  Then  what  could  it  be?  What 
was  all  this  fuss  about'?  The  lamentations  be- 
came louder  and  louder  and  the  excitement 
apparently  greater. 

Finally  a  number  of  sfjuaws  who  had  gone 
to  the  creek  bottom  appeared  in  the  center  of 
the  little  camp.  They  carried  bundles  of  green 
willows,  dozens  of  large  hard-head  boulders 
and  rawhide  receptacles  filled  Avith  water;  also 
a  bundle  of  dry  faggots. 

After  the  stones  had  been  piled  in  a  neat 
heap  a  fire  was  built  upon  them  which  was 
allowed  to  bum  briskly  for  half  an  hour.  Then 
the  coals  and  ashes  were  brushed  otf  and  a 
tent-like  covering  put  over  a  quickly  woven 
basket-like  structure  that  had  been  built  over 
the  stones.  Then  the  water  was  dashed  upon 
the  stones  and  the  steam  began  to  ascend. 

Presently  out  from  a  tepee  came  a  squaw 
with  a  bundle  which  she  gently  shoved  under 
the  elkskin  covered  cauldron  of  steam. 

"Say,"  said  one  of  the  boys,  "are  you  on?" 

"Sure  enough,"  the  other  whispered,  "they 
are  giving  that  kid  a  Turkish  bath." 

And  that's  what  they  were  doing;  but  it 
wasn't  Turkish — just  Tnjun. 


The  Prairie  Schooner  73 

Keturniug  to  caini)  the  boys  proceeded  to 
slip  into  their  blankets  quietly,  say  nothing 
about  what  they  had  seen,  and  go  to  sleep. 
They  believed  the  straggling  band  of  Arapa- 
hoes  were  not  on  the  war-path  and  had  work 
for  the  "medieinc-man" — the  big  bnelc  they 
first  saAV  come  out  of  his  tepee. 

You  have  no  idea  how  cautiously  the  boys 
went  about  getting  the  blankets  ofif  the  wagon 
so  as  not  to  disturb  the  boss,  a  man  they 
feared.     So  they  moved  noiselessly. 

One  threw  his  roll  of  blankets  from  the  top 
of  the  trailer  and  the  other  caught  the  bundle 
and  proceeded  to  flatten  it  out  into  a  comfort- 
able bed  when  he  heard  a  familiar  noise,  and 
forgetting  that  they  were  to  be  silent,  the 
youth  on  the  ground  yelled : 

"Look  out— a  rattler!" 

It  woke  up  the  whole  canip.  The  snake  had 
occupied  the  blankets  from  four  a.  m.,  at  least, 
until  this  time — midnight.  Perhaps  he  had 
slept  with  the  boy  until  four  a.  m. ;  I  think 
he  did;  anyway,  he  had  rolled  him  up  and  put 
him  where  found. 


Belated  Grace 
For  a  Christmas  Dinner 


CHAPTER  VI 
Belated  Grace  for  a  Christmas  Dinner. 

AFTER  fighting  through  a  ten-hour  blizzard 
that  swept  across  the  plains  from  the 
Elk  Mountain  country  our  wagon-train  reached 
the  foothills  of  the  Medicine  Bow  range,  where 
there  was  shelter  for  the  work  cattle  along  a 
swift  running  stream.  The  snow  was  piled  in 
great  drifts  everywhere  except  upon  exposed 
high  spots,  and  it  seemed  impossible  for  us  to 
proceed  farther,  for  we  knew  that  along  the 
goA'^ernment  trail  just  beyond,  and  1,000  feet 
higher,  that  the  driftp  would  be  so  deep  that 
a  long  camp  where  Ave  had  stopped  would  be 
necessary. 

Ten  men  were  tolled  off  by  the  wagon-boss 
to  chop  down  young  quaking  aspen  trees,  the 
bark  and  small  twigs  of  which  furnished  appe- 
tizing fodder  for  the  bulls.  Another  gang 
climbed  a  sidehill  and  with  axes  felled  a  group 
of  stunted  pines  for  the  side  walls  of  a  cabin; 
still  others  were  sent  into  a  ' '  burnt  and  doAvn ' ' 
piece  of  timber  to  gather  well  seasoned  dead 
pitch  pine  for  firewood. 

The  storm  lasted  until  six  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  then  continued  as  an  old-fashioned 
heavy  snowfall  with  no  wind,  increasing  the 
level  of  the  snow  to  the  tops  of  the  wheels  of 


78  The  Prairie   Schooner 

our  corraled  wagons.  Apparently  they  were 
doomed  to  stay  where  they  were  until  spring. 

Next  morning  there  was  a  let-up.  Then  the 
blizzard  began  again  in  all  its  fury — only  such 
a  blizzard  as  one  can  see  in  but  one  other  place 
on  earth,  judging  from  Dana's  description  of 
his  experience  in  going  around  the  Horn.  The 
cattle,  with  almost  human  intelligence,  200 
head  of  them,  crowded  toward  the  big  bon- 
fires of  pitch,  and  with  long  faces  looked 
mournfully  upon  the  scene.  They  seemed  to 
know,  as  we  did,  that  the  prospects  were  not 
bright  for  our  cavalcade.  Certainly  there  was 
no  grass  in  sight  now,  not  even  on  the  round- 
topped  knolls  bordering  our  little  valley,  for 
the  night  fall  of  snow  was  heavy  and  damp, 
and  finally,  Avhen  the  thermometer  registered  a 
few  degrees  below  zero,  the  grass  was  sealed 
against  the  tough  noses  and  even  the  hoofs  of 
the  hungry  bulls.  An  attempt  was  made 
by  a  scouting  party  to  find  a  clear  feeding 
place  on  the  back  trail,  but  a  day's  investiga- 
tion resulted  in  failure.  Not  a  blade  of  grass 
could  be  found — all  sealed  with  a  heavy  crust 
that  would,  in  most  places,  carry  a  horse  and 
rider. 

The  storm  continued,  after  an  eight-hour  let- 
up, the  temperature  rising.  Tavo  feet  more  fell 
on  top  of  the  crust,  then  came  another  freeze 
and  a  new  crust.  After  twenty-four  hours  an- 
other blizzard  from  the  north,  consisting  of 
sleet  and  snow  and  some  rain,  was  like  a  sand- 
storm in  summer  on  the  plains  beloAv.     Tt  was 


Tlie  Prairie   Schooner  79 

fierce,  nearly  freezing  and  blinding  both  men 
and  cattle.  The  poor  bulls  were  more  forlorn 
than  ever.  They  gnawed  the  very  wood  of 
the  aspens,  and  there  wasn't  enough  of  that. 

On  the  last  erust  of  all  this  snow  and  sleet 
it  was  finally  found  possible  to  take  the  oxen 
farther  along  into  the  mountains,  where  four 
men  drove  them.  Others  went  ahead  with  axes 
and  for  two  weeks  cut  aspens  and  sought  out 
hidden  protected  places  in  the  valleys  where 
there  were  a  few  blades  of  grass  and  some 
succulent  underbrush. 

One  day,  when  the  sun  was  shining  brightly 
on  the  white  mantle  and  the  distant  peaks  of 
the  majestic  mountains  of  blue  stood  out  like 
a  painting,  Nate  Williams,  wagon-boss,  spoke : 

"Do  you  know,"  he  said  to  the  fellows  who 
were  carving  the  carcass  of  a  faithful  old  bul- 
lock, ' '  that  tomorrow  is  Christmas  ? ' '  None 
had  thought  of  it. 

"And,"  he  continued,  "do  you  know  Ave 
are  liable  to  stay  where  we  are  until  the 
Fourth  of  July,  if  we  don 't  get  a  move  ou  ? " 
There  were  no  suggestions. 

"Furthermore,"  added  Williams,  "we  have- 
n't much  else  to  eat  but  beef — there  are  just 
five  100-pound  sacks  of  flour  in  the  mess 
wagon — no  bacon  nor  canned  goods.  Its  a 
case  of  shoveling  a  road  to  Crane 's  Neck. ' ' 

Crane's  Neck  was  a  mountain  twist  in  the 
road,  a  mile  from  camp.  If  the  road  could  be 
cleared  to  that  point  there  wovild  be  fair  haul- 
ing for  five   miles  in   the    range    to    another 


80  The  Prairie   Schooner 

stretch  that  had  been  filled  in  places  with  from 
ten  to  twenty  feet  of  snow,  while  one  spot  was 
covered  by  a  slide  from  a  mountain  to  a  depth 
of  forty  feet  ,and  for  a  considerable  distance 
along  the  trail. 

For  three  hours  plans  were  discussed,  and 
it  was  finally  determined  to  go  to  work  with 
shovels  and  picks,  but  not  until  after  Christ- 
mas. Our  caravan  included  a  blacksmith's 
forge,  also  a  regular  wrecking  outfit,  and  in 
a  short  time  big  wooden  shovels  were  made 
from  blocks  of  pine  with  handles  stoutly  at- 
tached with  iron  bands. 

The  cook  was  a  youth  of  twenty  and  had  all 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  adventurer.  He  had 
spent  a  year  on  a  whaler  and  knew  what  it 
meant  to  drift  in  the  ice  north  of  Point  Bar- 
row. This  present  situation,  he  said,  was  a 
picnic ;  so  was  the  one  in  the  Arctic.  It 
couldn't  be  so  bad  that  he  wished  to  be  snug- 
gled away  in  a  feather  bed  somewhere  east 
of  the  Missouri  River.  That  would  be  too  or- 
dinary. 

''If  I  could  sit  down  to  a  table  at  the  best 
hotel  in  the  land,"  he  said,  "I'd  prefer  to  eat 
the  dinner  that  I'm  going  to  cook  for  you  fel- 
lows tomorrow." 

Williams  sneered.  "Yes."  he  said,  "avc  pyt 
old  Tex  (a  long-honi  bull)  out  of  his  starving 
misery  and  the  boys  have  found  his  liver  to 
be  0.  K.    Maybe  you  can  give  us  a  liver  pie." 

"I'll  do  better  than  that."  said  the  boy; 
"I'll  not  only  give  you  a  beef  stew,  but  a  pud- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  81 

ding  that  you  can't  buy  outside  of  London  or 
Liverpool — a  plum  duff — and  a  cake.  Old 
Tex  will  also  be  on  the  menu  in  several  places, 
for  his  tenderloin  looks  good,  and  there  are  ia 
few  steaks  which,  when  properly  treated  Math 
a  maul  on  the  top  of  a  stump,  will  be  as  good 
as  you  will  get  in  a  'Frisco  water  front  lodg- 
ing, and  better  than  any  of  you  fellows  have 
had  since  we  hit  the  drifts." 

I  have  eaten  meals  that  mother  used  to  cook, 
I've  been  famished  during  a  sea  voyage,  and 
devoured  a  Norwegian  sailor's  pea  soup;  I've 
participated  in  several  real  banquets  in  New 
York;  I've  dined  at  Delmonico's  and  at  Sher- 
ry's, at  Young's  in  Boston,  and  I've  feasted 
in  a  circus  cook  tent;  but  my  Christmas  din- 
ner in  the  foothills  of  Wj^oming  in  1874,  un- 
der the  circumstances  I  have  but  faintly 
described,  still  is  a  fond  memory  and  holds  the 
record  as  the  best  meal  I  ever  ate.  It  was  as 
follows : 

MENU 

I\Iarrowbone  Soup — "Tex"  Water  Cress 

Beef  Stew— "Tex" 

Hamburg  Steak — "Tex" 

Planked  Porterhouse  Steak — "Tex" 

Tenderloin  Steak — "Tex"  Roast  Beef — "Tex" 

Corn  Bread  Wheat  Bread 

English  Plum  Pudding— Hard  and  Soft  Sauce 

Raisins       Cake       Coffee       Tea 

(No  butter  or  milk)  (Lots  of  salt  and  pepper) 

The  corn  bread  was  made  from  meal  milled 
by  the  cook  from  shelled  corn  in  the  cargo. 
The  "plums"  were  raisins,  of  which  the  cook 
had   a   few   pounds.      H'e    used    wheat    flour. 


82  The  Prairie  Schooner 

baking  ipowder  and  grease  saved  from  the 
final  ration  of  the  bacon  which  gave  out  a 
week  before  Christmas.  The  hard  sauce  was 
made  with  sugar  and  grease  and  a  flavoring 
extract.  The  soft  or  liquid  sauce  contained  a 
"remedy"  requisitioned  from  a  homeopathic 
quantity  found  in  the  wagon-boss'  medicine 
chest — a  few  spoonfuls  of  brandy.  The  water- 
cress was  found  two  miles  away  at  a  spring. 
The  boys  called  it  "pepper  grass."  There  it 
was  fresh  and  green,  protected  by  spring 
water  which  never  freezes,  and  in  some  places 
it  was  peeping  out  from  the  edge  of  the  snow 
at  the  brookside. 

And  now  about  whisky.  There  were  sixty 
men  in  this  camp,  and  in  one  of  the  big 
wagons  were  three  barrels  of  whisky,  but  it 
belonged  to  the  post  trader  at  Fort  Fetter- 
man,  and  it  was  a  tradition  not  even  broken 
on  this  exceptional  passage  from  Medicine 
Bow  on  the  U.  P.  to  Fort  Fetterman  on  the 
North  Platte  that  a  consignment  of  hard 
liquor  was  as  safe  in  a  bull  train  as  it  would 
be  anywhere  on  earth,  .and  that  it  would  reach 
its  destination  untouched.  Few  men  drank  in- 
toxicants on  these  trips.  It  was  a  crime  to 
be  found  with  whisky,  punishable  by  banish- 
ment from  camp,  and  that  might  have  meant 
death.  But  at  both  ends  of  the  journey — 
that's  another  story. 

The  plainsman  and  mountaineer,  the  bull- 
whacker  and  the  stage-driver,  when  chilled, 
drank  Avater.    Whisky  caused  him  to  perspire. 


The  Prairie  Schooner  83 

and  that  was  bad.  He  did  not  often  use  it 
when  on  duty. 

One  of  the  peculiar  things  about  this  Christ- 
mas dinner  is  the  fact  that  there  were  no 
mountain  grouse,  no  sage  hen,  no  antelope, 
deer,  nor  elk  for  the  menu.  The  truth  is  the 
storm  drove  everything  of  the  kind  in  another 
direction — the  direction  in  which  we  were 
slowly  moving — and  some  time  later,  when  we 
emerged  upon^the  other  side  of  the  range  with 
our  ox-power  so  greatly  reduced  that  we  made 
less  than  a  mile  of  progress  a  day,  the  herds 
of  elk  stampeded  a  dozen  times  past  our  camps, 
and  the  "fool  grouse"  sat  a  dozen  in  a  group 
upon  the  pine  boughs  in  the  mountains  and 
refused  to  move,  allowing  us  to  kill  them,  if 
so  disposed,  one  at  a  time :  but  Ave  did  it  only 
once,  just  to  prove  that  it  could  be  done. 
(Colonel  Roosevelt,  please  note!) 

It  took  us  a  couple  of  weeks  to  shovel  our 
way  out,  and  Avhile  the  sun  shone  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day  hardly  a  flake  of  the  snow 
melted.  The  air  was  at  times  l)iting  cold,  but 
invigorating,  and  every  man,  including  the 
boss  and  the  cook  and  even  the  night  herder, 
fell  to  the  work  with  a  will  that  finally  meant 
victory.  In  places  Ave  operated  in  the  drifts 
as  you  see  the  excavators  in  a  city  cellar  or 
subAvay  operate,  digging  doAvn  to  the  surface 
and  then  benching  as  the  open-ground  miners 
or  cellar  excavators  do.  the  men  beloAV  tossing 
the  blocks  of  snoAv  up  to  the  bench  above  and 
they  in  turn  passing  it  to  the  top  of  the  drift. 


84  The  Prairie  Schooner 

Once  or  twice,  in  narrow  passages,  it  was 
necessary  to  build  several  benches.  In  one 
place  we  began  to  tunnel,  but  the  plan  was 
given  up,  for  our  wagons,  the  regulation  prai- 
rie schoonerSj  would  require  a  passage  big 
enough  for  a  railroad  furniture  car  to  pass 
through. 

After  the  high  plateau  was  reached — the 
land  that  represented  the  watershed  of  the 
Platte  Valley — it  was  clear  sailing,  and  while 
food — wild  game — was  plentiful,  and  we  ate 
lots  of  it,  the  memory  of  our  Christmas  dinner 
remained  to  remind  us  after  all  that  in  the 
midst  of  greatest  hardships  and  suffering  we 
often  find  something  to  be  thankful  for,  some- 
thing to  bring  us  to  our  senses  when  we  grum- 
ble or  complain  of  our  ill-luck  or  misfortunes. 

Had  I  been  as  appreciative  when  I  partook 
of  this  mountain  dinner  as  I  am  today  for  the 
blessings  of  Divine  Providence,  I  would  have 
been  able  to  say,  in  relating  this  story,  that 
we  properly  gave  thanks  to  Him  who  is  re- 
sponsible for  all  our  blessings  and  who 
chasteneth  us  for  our  wickedness ;  but  I  was 
not  properly  appreciative,  neither  were  my 
rough  but  honest  companions.  Therefore,  I 
take  this  opportunity  to  say  grace  more  than 
forty  years  late : 

Thank  God  for  that  snowhound  Christmas 
dinner. 


The  Fate  of  One-Eyed  Ed 


CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Fate  of  One-Eyed  Ed. 

FROM  the  cross-tree  of  a  telegraph  pole  hung 
the  body  of  a  man  when  the  9  :30  Union 
Pacific  Overland  Express  stopped  for  a  "slow" 
order  across  a  bridge  that  a  band  of  Comanche 
Indians  had  tried  to  bum. 

A  Massachusetts  woman  enroute  to  'Frisco 
stuck  her  head  out  of  a  ear  window  and  ex- 
claimed, "How  awfully  terrible!" 

Yes,  it  was. 

Ed  Preston  was  a  one-eyed  man.  I  don't 
know  how  he  lost  the  other  one,  but  I  do  know 
that  he  was  a  dead  shot  with  the  one  eye  that 
he  slanted  along  the  barrel  of  his  pistol  or 
buffalo  rifle,  the  latter  a  sawed-off  Springfield 
and  the  first  mentioned  an  old-time  army  Rem- 
ington. 

Preston's  marksmanship  cost  him  his  life. 
They  hung  Preston,  the  boys  did,  because  he 
killed  a  man  just  for  the  meanness  of  it.  or.  as 
one  of  them  said,  because  he  was  spoiling  for 
trouble. 

One  day  as  we  were  camped  on  the  north 
bank  of  the  North  Platte  near  the  eastern  line 
of  Wyoming,  Preston,  full  of  liquor,  lurched 
up  to  a  bunch  of  buUwhackers  and  asked  if 
anyone  present  thought  he  was  a  "dead  shot." 


88  The  Prairie   Schooner 

Of  course,  all  hands  admitted  that  his  reputa- 
tion was  unquestioned. 

''But  you  never  saw  me  shoot,"  he  said,  "so 

what  the do  you  know  about  it?"     Then 

lie  pulled  his  gun  and  backed  off,  saying,  as 
he  pointed  to  a  heap  of  discarded  tomato  cans : 

"Hey,  you  Charley,  heave  one  o'  them  cans 
in  the  air — hurry  up." 

Observing  his  apparent  quarrelsome  atti- 
tude, Charley  Snow,  a  youthful  member  of  the 
outfit,  obeyed  without  protest.  Snow  had  been 
assigned  by  Martin,  the  wagon-boss,  to  help 
the  cook  and  the  cook  had  made  him  responsi- 
ble for  the  proper  boiling  of  a  pot  of  beans. 
Snow  left  the  beans  and  thrcAV  a  can  as  far 
away  from  himself  as  he  could,  and  before  it 
hit  the  ground  it  was  perforated  by  a  bullet. 

"Now  throw  one  straight  up  in  the  air," 
commanded  Preston,  and  Snow  obeyed.  Pres- 
ton put  two  shots  into  that  "on  the  wing." 
Snow  attempted  to  resume  his  duties  at  the 
mess  fire,  but  Preston's  shooting  had  drawn 
a  dozen  or  more  of  the  men  of  the  outfit  to 
the  scene,  and  he  Avas  in  the  humor  to  show 
off;  therefore  as  Snow  was  the  youngest  and 
possibly  the  most  inoffensive  man  in  the  party, 
Preston  decided  to  eliminate  tlie  bean  question 
by  ordering  Snow,  with  a  flourish  of  his  gun, 
to  remove  the  beans  from  the  fire.  This  done, 
he  continued : 

"Now  you  throw  the  cans  and  be  lively 
about  it." 

Snow  did  as  ordered.     One.  two,  three,  ten 


The  Prairie  Schooner  89 

cans  went  into  the  fiir.  Preston  missed  none. 
Finally  the  boy  threw,  at  Preston's  command, 
two  at  a  time  and  both  were  plugged  before 
the,y  came  down.  Then  as  Snow  picked  up 
another  one  Preston  shot  it  out  of  his  hand, 
and  he  tried  to  quit  and  return  to  the  bean 
kettle,  whereupon  Preston  bored  a  hole 
through  SnoAv's  sombrero  without  cutting  off 
a  hair  or  bruising  his  scalp,  although  it  was 
plain  to  see  that  while  Snow  was  no  fresh 
tenderfoot  from  the  effete  East,  but  a  seasoned 
young  bulhvhacker  and  plainsman,  he  was 
more  than  uneasy.  The  boy  said  afterward 
that  while  he  had  a  whole  lot  of  confidence  in 
Preston's  marksmanship  he  knew  he  had  drunk 
at  least  a  pint  of  whisky— the  worst  of  the 
squirrel  variety  at  that — for  had  he  not  taken 
the  last  swig  out  of  a  flask,  thrown  it  almost 
at  Snow  and  sent  its  splinters  in  every  direc- 
tion by  a  shot  from  his  Remington?  Sober, 
said  Snow,  Preston  would  not  have  been  so 
bad,  but  drunk — he  objected  to  further  par- 
ticipation in  the  "William  Tell  business  and  he 
entered  his  protest.  When  he  discovered  that 
the  chambers  of  Preston's  revolver  were  tem- 
porarily empty.  Snow  quietly  took  a  rifle  from 
its  leather  fastenings  on  the  side  of  a  prairie 
schooner.  His  move  looked  ominous  to  his 
tormentor. 

Preston  was  a  coward,  as  were  all  of  thiat 
class  of  killers  in  those  days.  He  was  an  en- 
gineer of  a  bull  team  of  seven  yokes  and  a 
good  man  at  his  business,  but  a  bully,  a  brag- 


90  The  Prairie  Schooner 

gart  and  a  coward,  whose  victims  usually  were 
known  to  be  peaceful  and  who  were  unarmed 
or  unprepared  to  defend  themselves.  He  was 
not  the  heroic  figure  of  the  almost  forgotten 
wild  west — the  brave  and  big-hearted  fellow 
who  fought  sometimes  for  his  rights  or  what 
he  considered  his  rights.  Preston  was  just  a 
plain  murderer,  who  had  taken  a  place  among 
rough  but  honest  frontiersmen,  chased  from 
an  orderly  community  somewhere  in  God's 
country — then  east  of  the  Missouri,  now  any- 
where from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific — be- 
cause of  some  dark  crime  he  had  committed, 
no  doubt. 

All  day  long  we  had  been  fording  the  North 
Platte  at  this  point — Sidney  crossing — a  dis- 
tance of  at  least  a  half  a  mile,  including  a 
small  island  of  sand  and  a  few  bushes.  It  was 
the  last  trainload  of  provisions  for  the  season 
we  were  taking  north  to  the  government's 
beneficiaries  —  the  Ogalala  Sioux  and  the 
Cheyennes.  We  had  seventy  teams,  each  of 
seven  yokes,  and  two  wagons,  and  as  the 
Platte  is  a  swift-running  stream  at  this  point 
and  there  is  quicksand  between  the  south 
shore  and  the  island,  it  was  necessary  to  "jack 
up"  on  blocks  some  of  our  loads  on  the 
wagons  and  double  and  treble  teams,  some- 
times using  as  many,  as  twenty-five  yokes  of 
oxen  on  one  wagon  and  a  half  dozen  men, 
belly  deep  in  the  mush  ice,  punching  the  bulls. 
The  water  was  in  places  up  to  the  tops  of  the 


The  Prairie  Schooner  91 

wheels.    It  was  a  sun-up  to  sun-down  job  from 
corral  to  corral. 

Someone  had  whisky,  but  it  was  not  ap- 
parent until  late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the 
target  shooting  incidents  began.  The  boys 
were  a  sober  lot — the  good,  honest  kind,  and 
not  a  desperado  among  them,  barring  One- 
Eyed  Ed.  Others  there  were,  sure  enough, 
who  might  be  considered  hardly  fit  for  even 
the  most  humble  society,  for  they  looked  like 
pirates  —  all  of  them  —  hair  long,  clothes 
weather-beaten  and  rough,  faces  unshaven  and 
grizzled,  and  language  or  topics  of  conversa- 
tion not  what  would  be  called  cultured  by  any 
means.  Yet  there  was  in  this  outfit  a  pre- 
dominance of  good,  honest  hearts,  most  of 
them  measuring  life  from  a  standard  never 
understood  if  ever  known  in  "God's  Coun- 
try." These  sailors  of  prairie  schooners,  these 
pioneer  transportation  men  of  the  virile,  virgin 
West,  knew  little  law  or  order  or  justice,  as 
we  know  them ;  they  frequentlj^  violated  what 
is  known  as  the  law,  but  they  didn't  know  it. 
They  had  but  one  degree  of  murder.  It 
wasn't  murder  for  them  to  fight  and  kill  with 
pistols.  It  was  the  custom.  Murder  was  some- 
thing else.  It  was  to  kill  a  man  who  was  not 
"heeled"  or  when  his  back  was  turned,  or  to 
mount  another  man's  horse  and  ride  away. 
This  was  murder  in  the  first  degree — the  same 
as  if  the  owner  of  the  horse  had  been  shot  to 
death  while  asleep.  In  those  days  some  things 
were  as  necessary,  as  indispensable  as  life— a 


92  The  Prairie   Schooner 

horse,  a  saddle,  a  pair  of  blankets,  a  gun  and 
ammunition  and  a  butcher  knife — perhaps  a 
small  bag  of  salt.  The  last,  however,  would 
be  termed  a  luxury,  although  nearly  every 
man  in  those  days  had  a  little  salt  stored  away 
in  a  weather-proof  pocket  or  saddle  bag  for 
the  sage  hen,  antelope,  deer,  or  buffalo  beef 
he  might  have  for  dinner  or  breakfast. 

But  let  me  tell  you  how  Preston  spent  the 
rest  of  his  day.  It  was  early  in  the  afternoon 
when  he  perforated  Snow's  sombrero,  but  it 
was  sundown  when  he  shot  and  killed  Tom 
Sash,  the  boss  herder,  a  splendid  Texan,  who 
had  charge  of  an  Indian  contract  beef  herd 
which  had  come  up  the  trail  from  the  Lone 
Star  state  to  the  Platte  Valley  guided  by  a 
half  dozen  range  men  in  charge  of  Sash,  and 
were  being  grazed  along  the  Platte  bottoms 
previous  to  being  doled  out  as  per  agreement 
with  Uncle  Sam  to  the  clouted  redskins  at  the 
White  River  Agency  at  Red  Cloud. 

All  during  the  previous  summer,  as  the 
wagon  trains  passed  to  and  from  Sidney  and 
the  northern  forts  and  agencies,  Sash  had  told 
the  wagon  bosses  not  to  go  hungry  for  lack  of 
veal.  "We  are  anxious  to  fatten  these  cattle," 
he  would  say,  "and  you  are  welcome  to  a  calf 
or  two  any  time  you  want  it."  Sash  was  all 
right  and  the  bullwhackers  couldn't  sing  his 
praises  loud  enough. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  Snow's  engagement 
with  Preston  that  the  wagon  boss  told  Pres- 
ton to  try  his  hand  on  some  Indian  veal.     So 


The  Prairie   Schooner  93 

Preston  disappeared  down  the  river,  returning 
at  suppertime  with  the  admission  that  he  had 
not  only  veal  but  "j^earling  steak."  And  he 
had  some  of  it  with  him. 

The  beans  had  been  boiled  and  eaten,  the 
tin  dishes  and  cups,  pots  and  kettles  and  iron 
ovens  dumped  into  the  mess  wagon,  and  two 
crews  of  men  were  at  work  jacking  up  wagons 
and  greasing  axle  skeins,  when  the  space  at 
the  north  mouth  of  the  corral  was  suddenly 
filled  by  as  fine  a  horseman  as  ever  galloped 
over  the  plains.  It  was  Sash,  dressed  in  the 
costume  of  the  real  cowboy  of  the  long-horn 
cattle  day — sombrero,  chaps,  Rowell  spurs,  a 
Mexican  lariat  properly  adjusted  over  the 
horn  of  his  elaborate  double-cinched  cutting- 
out  saddle — everything  was  perfection.  He 
was  astride  a  fine  big  black  American  horse — 
not  a  regulation  cow  pony — a  shiny,  deep  bay 
charger  with  a  white  left  ankle  half  way  to 
the  knee  from  the  fetlock,  and  a  spot  of  white 
the  size  of  a  hand  on  the  face. 

He  came  on  a  gallop  and  stopped  so  short 
at  the  corral  mouth  that,  had  he  not  known 
his  business,  he  would  have  been  thrown  over 
the  chains.  But  that  was  the  style  of  riding. 
Plunge  ahead  to  the  object  or  point  desired- 
then  stop  short.  He  waved  his  hat  to  Martin, 
our  wagon  boss,  to  come  to  the  corral  chains. 

"Someone  fro_m  your  outfit,"  shouted  Sash, 
"has  been  out  in  one  of  our  herds  and  shot  a 
half  dozen  yearlings   and   two    three-year-old 


94  The  Prairie  Schooner 

steers.  Aren't  you  satisfied  with  veal?  Say, 
old  man,  who  did  this  mean  trick?" 

The  acts  of  a  coAvard  are  preceded  by  a 
queer  train  of  thought,  the  kingpin  of  which 
is  fear.  Preston  knew  his  disreputable  work 
of  butchering  among  the  herd  of  cattle  had 
been  discovered.  He  knew  that  Sash,  a  Texan, 
was  a  man  of  action,  and  that  Sash  was  forti- 
fied with  the  right  on  his  side,  and  if  justice 
were  meted  out  it  would  be  some  kind  of  pun- 
ishment. The  revolver  in  his  holster  was  close 
to  his  hand  and  fear — cowardl.y  fear — over- 
powered his  weak  mind. 

Martin  had  no  time  to  reply,  and  the  first 
indication  that  the  coward  was  to  act  upon 
the  impulse  that  would  move  him  was  the  cry 
from  a  bullwhacker: 

"Don't  shoot— don't." 

Sash,  who  was  looking  straight  over  his 
horse's  head,  turned  at  hearing  this  just  in 
time  to  receive  a  bullet  in  the  hollow  spot  un- 
der his  left  ear.  It  passed  clean  through  his 
head.  Both  arms  fieAv  into  the  air,  his  horse 
sprang  forward,  and  Sash  laid  upon  the  ground 
flat  on  his  back,  with  arms  spread  out  from 
his  body — dead.  His  face  was  ashen  white, 
eyes  and  mouth  closed,  both  fists  clinched. 

It  was  young  SnoAv  who  tied  the  black 
charger  to  a  wagon  wheel,  replacing  the  bridle 
with  a  halter.  The  horse  Avhinnied,  paAved  the 
dirt,  and  for  a  time  spun  around  as  far  as 
the  halter  strap  would  allow,  and  looked  at  his 
prostrate  master  with  what  seemed  to  be  al- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  95 

most  human  intelligence ;  in  fact,  his  ])Ocly 
was  soon  in  a  white  lather,  necessitating  a 
rub-down  and  then  a  blanket.  lie  trembled 
like  a  leaf  and  snorted  and  pawed  the  earth 
for  an  hour. 

Sash's  camp  was  on  the  south  bank  of  the 
Platte.  There^  Preston  was  delivered  by 
Wagon  Boss  Martin  and  a  delegation  of  the 
bull  outfit  fellows  after  he  had  tried  to  escape. 

That  night,  together  with  a  negro  boy,  SnoAv 
stood  guard  over  Sash's  body  to  protect  it 
from  the  coyotes,  for  they  were  numerous, 
close  at  hand  and  howled  mournfully  until 
break  of  day. 

None  touched  the  body,  as  it  had  been  de- 
termined to  follow  what  was  believed  to  be 
the  law,  for  this  time  the  outfit  was  only  fifty 
miles  from  where  at  least  a  pretense  of  regu- 
larity was  observed. 

A  rider  was  dispatched  to  Sidney,  then  a 
scattered  lot  of  board  shanties  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Union  Pacific  Kailroad  track. 

The  second  night  there  came  to  the  bull- 
whacker  camp  two  men  in  a  light  road  wagon. 
They  took  the  body  away. 

At  the  same  time  a  dozen  bullwhackers  and 
nearly  all  the  men  from  the  cow  camp  rode 
away  to  the  south.  Preston,  silent  as  the 
Sphynx,  sat  astride  a  horse,  his  hands  tied  be- 
hind him.  They  told  him  he  was  going  to 
Sidney  to  have  a  trial.  He  smiled,  but  said 
nothing.  It  was  just  an  effort  to  appear 
brave.     Ilis  life  had  been  one  of  crime.     He 


96  The  Prairie  Schooner 

was  a  pest  of  the  plains,  of  the  trails,  of  the 
camps — and  he  was  on  the  way  to  the  end  of 
a  rope.  He  knew  it,  and  did  not  plead  for 
mercy  or  ask  for  quarter;  he  did  not  in  the 
long  ride  across  the  sand  hills  utter  a  word 
of  regret  for  what  he  had  done.  He  was  heart- 
less, cruel,  brutal,  even  in  the  valley  of  the 
shadow.  And  he  was  silent  even  as  death 
itself.  He  showed  no  fear  as  we  would  de- 
scribe fear. 

Entering  Sidney  the  posse  and  the  prisoner 
took  the  center  one  of  three  coulees  that  ran 
down  into  the  town,  all  three  meeting  at  the 
level.  It  was  here  that  One-Eyed  Ed  met  the 
court  that  was  to  try  him,  together  with  the 
populace.  The  court  consisted  of  fifty  horse- 
men, half  of  whom  rode  down  the  east  coulee, 
the  other  half  down  the  other,  meeting  the 
prisoner  and  his  escort  as  abruptly  as  one 
meets  a  person  sometimes  in  whirling  around 
the  corner  of  a  city,  block. 

One  long  yi,  yi,  yi,  yi,  ye  !  was  the  "hear  ye" 
of  the  plainsman  court  crier — the  signal  un- 
derstood by  all  the  horsemen,  and  especially 
those  comprising  the  posse  just  emerging  from 
the  center  coulee.  As  if  by  magic  the  escort 
faded  away  and  the  prisoner,  bareheaded,  long 
hair  waving  in  the  wind,  his  hands  securely 
tied,  sat  upright — alone. 

Then  from  the  east  and  west  coulees  dashed 
horsemen  led  by  Jim  Redding  swinging  his 
lariat  over  and  over  and  over  his  head  until 
he  was  in  the  right  spot  to  spin  it  out.     Pres- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  97 

ton's  horse  stood  like  a  piece  of  statuary,  and 
to  give  the  man  on  his  back  his  proper  meed 
of  credit  let  it  be  recorded  that  he  had  the 
appearance  of  a  man  bravely  facing  death,  for 
he  sat  erect  and  made  no  effort  to  dismount, 
which  he  might  have  done,  for  he  had  not  been 
fastened  to  the  saddle,  as  that  would  have 
made  impossible  the  program  mapped  out  to 
the  minutest  detail. 

When  Redding  spun  his  lariat  for  Pres- 
ton's head — after  he  had  ridden  past  him  two 
or  three  times  while  the  horsemen  lined  up 
like  a  company  of  cavalry  and  looked  on — it 
landed  around  his  shoulders.  Redding  planted 
a  spur  into  his  cow  pony,  there  was  a  jump 
and  Preston's  body  shot  up  and  away  from 
his  mount  and  to  the  ground. 


Track-Layers  Fought  Redskins 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Track-Layers  Fought  Redskins. 

WHEN  the  T'^uion  Pacific  Railroad  was  be- 
ing built  the  Indians  were  wild  and  hos- 
tile. The  appearance  of  the  locomotive  was 
unwelcome.  Surveyors,  track-layers,  bridge- 
builders  and  others  if  not  properly  guarded 
by  details  of  United  States  troops  were  at- 
tacked from  ambush  and  often  killed. 

It  was  indeed  an  adventurous  calling  to  be 
a  railroader  in  those  days,  no  matter  in  what 
capacity;  for  if  it  wasn't  Indians  it  was  some- 
thing else  that  made  it  so  in  the  then  wilder- 
ness. Towns  were  built  in  a  day  along  the 
South  Platte  River  and  the  populations  were 
first  made  up  largely  by  the  scum  of  the  earth, 
consisting  of  criminals  of  all  kinds  from  all 
quarters  of  the  globe,  either  engaged  in  gam- 
bling, highway  robbery  or  running  saloons  that 
were  the  toughest  ever  known  in  America. 

Dance  halls  and  dives  followed  the  work  of 
railroad  building  from  Omaha  to  Ogden,  and 
if  the  earth  could  speak  it  would  tell  a  story 
of  murder  that  Avould  make  one  shudder. 
Hundreds  of  men  were  shot  either  in  brawls 
or  by  robbers  and  their  bodies  buried  in  un- 
marked graves. 

At  Julesburg  alone,  the  story  was  told,  after 


102  The  Prairie   Schooner 

the  temporary  terminus  was  moved  on  west 
100  miles,  there  were  417  graves  in  one  side- 
hill,  and  among  the  lot  not  one  grave  in  the 
so-called  cemetery  was  filled  by  a  man  who 
died  a  natural  death.  This  may  be  an  ex- 
aggeration— perhaps  it  is — but  it  was  not  an 
uncommon  thing  for  a  man  to  be  shot  and 
killed  in  a  brawl  while  a  dance  was  in  prog- 
ress Mathout  for  a  moment  stopping  the  fes- 
tivities. 

But  the  "noble"  Indian,  so  often  represent- 
ed in  heroic  portraits — and  always  called  a 
"brave"  by  w-riters  who  never  saw  an  Indian 
of  that  period — was  not  there,  at  least  not 
numerously.  He  was  a  sneaking  sniper,  hiding 
behind  a  sand  hill  or  concealed  in  a  clump  of 
bushes  in  a  creek  or  river  bottom,  with  a  good 
chance  to  get  away  if  attacked.  He  seldom 
came  out  into  the  open  to  fight  even  a  lone 
surveying  party,  but  waited  for  the  cover  of 
night,  hid  behind  a  rock  and  took  a  pot  shot 
and  then  rode  his  horse  at  top  speed  to  a  safe 
distance.  He  was  a  miserable  coward,  and 
dirty.  Perhaps  the  next  day  he  would  come 
meekly  into  some  camp  where  there  were  sev- 
eral hundred  men,  begging  for  sugar  or  bacon. 
Artists  have  painted  him  in  all  his  glory  in 
sight  of  his  enemy  discharging  his  arrows  or 
his  gun.  Don't  believe  it.  He  didn't  do  it 
more  than  a  half  dozen  times,  and  when  he  out- 
numbered the  white  from  50  or  100  to  1.  It 
is  too  bad.  I  know,  to  destroy  such  beautiful 


The  Prairie  Schooner  103 

fiction:  but  it  is  necessary  in  order  to  keep 
these  chronicles  straight. 

However,  it  is  the  truth  that  a  crew  en- 
gaged in  track-laj'ing  in  the  vicinity  of  North 
Platte  was  one  day  almost  overwhelmed  bj^  a 
band  of  Comanches  that  came  up  from  the 
south  following  a  herd  of  buffalo  across  the 
Republican  River.  There  were  less  than  fifty 
men  in  the  gang,  including  a  locomotive  en- 
gineer, fireman,  conductor,  foreman  and  track- 
layers, among  the  rest  two  Chinese  cooks.  The 
Indians  had  come  upon  the  crew  unexpectedly, 
for  the  buffalo  herd,  in  passing  near  at  hand, 
kicked  up  such  a  cloud  of  dust  that  the  crew 
was  unseen  until  it  was  too  late  for  the  Coman- 
ches to  retreat  without  a  fight. 

The  buffaloes  rushed  on  past  the  right-of- 
way  of  the  road,  and  when  the  Indians  fol- 
lowed the  first  they  knew  of  the  locomotive 
was  when  the  engineer  sounded  his  whistle  to 
bring  the  scattered  crew  to  the  shelter  afforded 
by  a  train  of  flat  cars  and  the  engine.  The 
country'  all  about  was  flat.  The  Indians  scat- 
tered in  a  circle  and  at  a  distance  of  perhaps 
500  yards  began  to  shoot.  The  crew  M^as  well 
supplied  with  guns  and  ammunition  and  the 
battle  lasted  for  half  an  hour,  resulting  in  the 
death  of  one  Indian  and  the  wounding  of  not 
one  white  man.  Still  it  had  all  the  elements 
of  a  movie  shoAv,  and  would  have  made  a  fine 
reel.  In  another  hour  track-laying  proceeded 
as  usual. 

Outside   of  a    few   clashes  of  this   kind   the 


^ 


104  The  Prairie  Schooner 

U.  P.  ^vent  its  glorious  way  without  open  bat- 
tle Avitli  so-called  redskins.  Indians  look  good 
in  pictures,  and  they  are  picturesque — in  pic- 
tures and  paintings ;  but  when  you  were  near 
them  in  those  days  you  found  them  nearly 
always  good-for-nothing,  insect-infested,  dis- 
eased, hungry  and  cowardly,  with  less  nerve 
than  a  regular  tramp. 

When  the  U.  P.  was  building  it  should  be 
remembered  the  Indians  had  been  seeing  the 
pioneer  going  across  the  plains  with  wagons 
for  many  years.  The  pony  express  rider,  the 
bullwhacker  and  the  California  and  Utah  emi- 
grant had  been  his  almost  daily  companion ; 
therefore  he  had  learned  to  be  circumspect. 
Those  hardy  people  had  shot  straight  and  to 
kill,  and  by  the  time  track-laying  began  the 
Indian  Avas  about  as  cautious  as  a  mountain 
sheep.  He  knew  the  range  of  the  white  man's 
gun,  the  fieetness  of  his  big  American  horse, 
and  he  governed  himself  accordingly,  devoting 
all  his  time,  when  doing  anything  at  all,  to 
impede  the  progress  of  railroad  building,  to 
pure  and  unadulterated  murder  from  ambush. 


"Bill"  Hickok,  City  Marshal 


CHAPTER  IX. 

"Bill"  Hickok,  City  Marshal. 

<<VV7rLD  BILL "HICKOK,  who  had  been  city 
▼  ▼  marshal  at  Abilene.  Kan.,  blew  into 
Cheyenne  in  1874  along  with  Texas  Charley 
and  a  few  more  ''bad  men."  Things  were  boom- 
ing in  the  Wyoming  metropolis.  Gold  had  been 
discovered  in  the  Black  Hills,  and  the  crowds 
of  fortune-seekers  from  every  point  of  the 
compass  had  begun  to  flock  in.  Men  were 
there  from  South  Africa,  Brazil,  California  and 
Australia,  intermingling  with  the  New  Eng- 
lander,  the  Middle  Westerners,  the  cowboys 
and  bullwhaekers  and  others  attracted  by  the 
reports  of  fabulous  discoveries.  Cheyenne  was 
the  chief  outfitting  point  for  a  trip  into  the 
hills,  although  thousands  tramped  through  the 
sands  of  the  Bad  Lands  to  the  new  Eldorado 
via  Fort  Pierre. 

It  meant  big  work  for  the  small  police  force 
of  Cheyenne,  for  there  were,  besides  the  "kill- 
ers" of  the  "Wild  Bill"  order,  garroters  and 
other  crooks  from  near  and  far  to  look  after. 
Gambling  didn't  bother  the  authorities  at  all, 
and  such  characters  as  "Canada  Bill,"  the 
most  famous  of  all  the  confidence  men.  were. 


108  The  Prairie  Schooner 

as  a  matter  of  fact,  able  to  ply  their  trade 
almost  unmolested. 

"Canada  Bill"  had  the  appearance  of  a 
Methodist  preacher  of  that  period,  wearing  a 
black  broadcloth,  long-tailed  coat,  trousers  of 
the  same  material,  a  black  felt  hat,  "biled" 
shirt  and  black  bow  tie.  He  carried  an  old- 
fashioned  satchel  made  of  oil  cloth,  a  pattern 
of  which  is  seen  nowadays  only  on  the  vaude- 
ville stage.  "Bill"  was  certainly  an  innocent- 
looking  individual — solemn-faced  and  perfect- 
ly harmless — apparently.  He  spent  most  of 
his  time  on  the  U.  P.  passenger  trains  between 
Omaha  and  Cheyenne  and  is  said  to  have 
swindled  travelers  out  of  an  aggregate  of 
$100,000  at  three-card  monte,  a  form  of  swin- 
dling in  great  vogue  at  that  time.  Cheyenne 
was  his  headquarters  and  he  was  almost  as 
well  known  as  any  man  in  the  town ;  but  he 
followed  his  profession  practically  undisturbed 
for  several  years,  and  I  doubt  if  he  ever  spent 
a  day  in  jail.  His  victims  included  some  men 
who  prided  themselves  on  their  shrewdness. 

"Wild  Bill"  Hickok  was  perhaps  the  best 
known  "character"  in  Cheyenne  in  the  70's. 
He,  too,  was  a  ministerial-looking  person,  but 
was  not  a  confidence  operator.  He  was  just  a 
plain  gambler,  and  not  a  very  good  one,  but 
he  managed  to  escape  the  halter  every  time  he 
put  a  notch  in  his  gun.  "Bill"  killed  no  one  in 
Cheyenne ;  in  fact,  his  days  there  were  quiet 
and  prosy.  His  killings  Avere  all  done  in  Kan- 
sas at  the  time  the  K.  P.  was  being  built  from 


The  Prairie  Schooner  109 

the  Missouri  to  Denver.  When  in  Cheyenne 
he  was  on  his  last  legs — had  begun,  as  they 
say  nowadays,  to  slow  up.  Nevertheless,  he 
was  feared  by  a  great  many,  owing  to  his 
reputation,  although  among  certain  classes  it 
was  generally  understood  that  he  had  lost  his 
nerve.  This  was  demonstrated  while  the  Black 
Hills  excitement  was  at  its  height.  "Bill"  was 
more  than  six  feet  tall,  straight  and  thin.  He 
carried  two  big  revolvers  in  his  belt  and  they 
protruded  sometimes  from  the  side  of  his  long 
broadcloth  coat.  He  also  carried  a  bowie 
knife.  But  for  all  this  and  his  reputation,  he 
weakened  one  night  when  an  undersized  little 
California  huccaro  challenged  him  to  walk  into 
the  street  and  fight  a  duel  at  twenty  paces. 
"Bill"  laid  down,  saying  his  eyes  had  gone 
back  on  him  and  that  his  shooting  days  were 
over. 

Shortly  after  this  incident  the  Cheyenne  au- 
thorities decided  to  rid  the  town  of  a  few  of 
the  worst  criminals,  so  they  tacked  a  notice 
on  telegraph  poles  containing  a  list  of  a  dozen 
or  more  names  of  men,  headed  by  "Wild 
Bill,"  giving  them  twenty-four  hours'  time  to 
get  out  of  town.  When  "Bill"  saw  the  notice 
he  smiled,  and  with  his  bowie  knife  cut  the 
notice  into  ribbons,  and  he  stayed  until  he  got 
ready  to  leave  some  months  later.  He  went  to 
Custer  City,  then  to  Deadwood,  where  he  met 
his  death  at  the  hands  of  an  avenger,  who  shot 
him  in  the  back  as  he  sat  in  a  poker  game. 
His   murderer  claimed   "Bill"  had  killed  his 


110  The  Prairie   Schooner 

brother  in  Kansas  and  said  he  had  followed 
him  for  two  years,  waiting  for  a  chance  to  kill 
him.  "Bill"  had  a  rule  of  life  that  he  violated 
the  night  he  died,  and  that  was  never  to  sit 
with  his  back  to  a  door  or  window.  On  the 
fatal  night  he  sat  with  his  back  to  a  half-open 
door  into  Avhich  the  avenger  crept. 

"Wild  Bill"  was  a  "road  agent"  (a  high- 
wayman) long  before  the  Black  Hills  stam- 
pede and  frequently  entertained  a  crowd  with 
descriptions  of  the  raids  he  and  his  pals  made 
upon  the  Mormon  emigrants  when  they  were 
enroute  from  Xauvoo,  111.,  to  Salt  Lake.  Ac- 
cording to  his  own  stories  he  was  a  heartless 
brute.  Many  deeds,  however,  that  have  been 
laid  at  his  door,  and  others  that  he  bragged 
about,  were  never  committed.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  he  murdered  all  the  way  from 
fifteen  to  thirty  men.  but  most  of  these  were 
killed  while  he  was  marshal. 

One  story  that  used  to  be  told  in  Cheyenne, 
but  which  Avas  not  authenticated,  was  that  on 
one  occasion  at  Abilene  he  entered  a  restaurant 
for  breakfast  and  or.dered  ham  and  eggs 
"turned  over."  The  waiter  returned  with  the 
eggs  fried  on  one  side  and  "Bill"  angrily  said: 

"I  told  you  to  have  them  eggs  turned  over!" 

Whereupon  the  waiter  playfully  gave  the 
dish  a  flip  and  turned  them  over.  This  so 
angered  "Bill"  that  he  shot  the  waiter  dead, 
and  then  finished  his  meal,  the  poor  waiter's 
body  lying  at  his  feet. 

There  was  so  much   garroting  of  men  Avho 


The  Prairie  Schooner  111 

came  to  Che^'enne  to  join  the  rush  into  the 
hills  that  some  of  the  wiser  ones  slipped  out- 
side the  town  at  night  and  slept  on  the  prairie, 
while  others,  armed  to  the  teeth,  either  walked 
the  streets  or  formed  companies  with  guards 
for  protection.  It  was  a  condition  of  affairs 
that  gave  the  authorities  more  than  they  could 
handle  at  the  start.  However,  after  the  first 
fcAv  months  of  excitement  Cheyenne  began  to 
be  good,  and  soon  the  civilization  and  order  of 
older  communities  was  apparent  on  every  hand. 

The  railroad  shortened  the  distance  between 
the  frontier  and  "God's  Country,"  and  before 
one  could  realize  it  Cheyenne  was  as  orderly 
and  well  behaved  as  Worcester,  Mass.  So  it 
is  today.  "Wild  Bill,"  "Texas  Jack,"  "Can- 
ada Bill"  and  the  thieves  and  gamblers,  with 
their  guns  and  daggers,  are  forgotten;  and  if 
some  of  them  could  come  back  and  tramp  the 
streets  again  they  would  be  as  great  curiosi- 
ties as  they  would  be  on  Broadway.  New  York, 
or  State  street,  Chicago — and  they  would  land 
in  jail  or  get  out  of  town  unless  they  walked 
a  chalk-mark. 

Cheyenne  has  long  been  in  "God's  country," 
although  at  the  time  discussed  it  was  a  long 
way  over  the  line. 


when  Cheyenne  Was  Young 


CHAPTER   X. 

When  Cheyenne  Was  Young. 

LET  us  suppose  this  is  the  j^ear  1872,  and 
that  we  are  taking  a  trip  across  the  con- 
tinent on  the  first  railroad  from  the  Missouri 
river  to  the  Golden  Gate.  We  have  passed 
through  western  Nebraska  and  its  uninhabited 
hills  and  plains  and  we  are  entering  Cheyenne, 
on  a  vast  plain,  yet  situated  at  the  foot  of  a 
range  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  known  as  the 
lower  Black  Hills.  We  are  in  sight  of  Long's 
and  other  Colorado  peaks  of  the  Rockies  and 
while  apparently  on  a  wide  prairie  for  several 
hours  we  have  nevertheless  been  climbing  a 
steep  grade  all  the  way  from  Sidney,  the  last 
division  point. 

Cheyenne  is  (in  '72,  remember)  a  city  of 
boards,  logs  and  canvas,  but  is  beginning  to 
shake  off  the  very  first  things  of  a  "camp," 
and  is  entering  the  brick  age,  with  good  pros- 
pects of  acquiring  fame  as  a  substantial  city. 

But  there  are. some  hundreds  of  things  here 
that  are  strange  to  the  eyes  of  an  Eastern 
man.  For  example,  in  all  his  life  he  has  never 
seen  a  man,  outside  a  military  encampment, 
with  a  revolver  strapped  in  a  holster  to  a  belt 
around  his  waist.  Perhaps  he  has  never  seen 
a  faro  game  in  his  life,  and  chuck-a-luck  is  as 


116  The  Prairie  Schooner 

mysterious  to  him  as  the  lingo  of  the  broad- 
hatted  men  who  recommend  it  to  the  fortune- 
seeker  instead  of  a  gold  mine  or  honest  toil  of 
any  kind.  He  has  never  seen,  much  less  heard 
of,  a  hurdy-gurdy  where  the  men  and  the  scar- 
let women  "waltz  to  the  bar"  to  the  tune  of 
the  "Arkansaw  Traveler." 

He  used  to  see  his  Uncle  Cyrus  plow  with 
a  slow-plodding  team  of  oxen  among  the  cob- 
ble stones  of  a  Vermont  farm;  but  this  is  the 
first  time  in  his  life  that  he  ever  saw  seven 
yokes  of  oxen  hitched  together  in  front  of 
two  big  wagons  and  every  team  pacing  a  gait 
that  would  bring  praise  from  the  judge 's  stand 
at  a  county  fair. 

He  starts  down  the  main  street  and  he  sees 
"The  Gold  Room"  in  big  letters  on  a  big 
wooden  building.  "This  is  where  they  keep  it," 
he  muses,  and  he  goes  in.  It  is  where  they  sell 
it — "forty-rod,"  "squirrel"  a.nd  the  rest.  But 
that  is  not  all  we  see  in  the  "Gold  Room,"  run 
by  Jack  Allen.  We  also  see  a  woman  called 
Madam  Moustache  dealing  the  game  of  "twen- 
ty-one," at  which  "Wild  Bill"  Hickok,  Texas 
Jack  and  a  lot  more  celebrities  are  "sitting 
in."  Then  in  another  corner  is  a  faro  game. 
Men  here  are  so  eager  to  get  their  money  on 
the  cards  that  some  of  them  are  standing  on 
the  back  rungs  of  chairs  and  reaching  over 
sitting  players  to  put  stacks  of  golden  twen- 
ties on  the  table,  either  "calling  the  turn"  or 
betting  that  the  nine-spot  or  some  other  card 


The  Prairie  Schooner  117 

will  win  or  lose  as  the  dealer  slips  the  paste- 
boards out  of  his  silver  box. 

It  is  night,  of  course,  and  after  a  while, 
when  the  gambling  begins  to  drag,  the  tables 
are  shoved  a  little  closer  to  the  wall  and  the 
big  floor  is  given  up  to  dancing,  even  though 
through  it  all — dancing  and  gambling — a  stage 
performance  is  going  on.  Some  painted  female 
person  of  uncertain  age,  but  positive  reputa- 
tion, is  either  shouting  personalities  at  char- 
acters in  the  crowd  or  bellowing  and  butcher- 
ing a  popular  song  in  a  male  voice.  Smoke  is 
thick  and  not  fragrant  to  the  nostrils  of  the 
new-comer — the  tenderfoot.  The  ' '  Gold  Room ' ' 
roof  is  also  occupied — that  is,  the  inside  part 
of  it — with  boxes  crowded  with  men  and 
women,  the  women  being  known  as  "beer 
jerkers."  In  the  early  hours  of  morning  it 
is  difficult  to  find  a  sober  man  or  woman. 

The  same  thing  is  going  on  in  "McDaniels' 
Variety,"  opposite  Tim  Dyer's  Tin  Restaurant. 
McDaniels,  bald-headed  and  also  smooth  of 
voice,  is  circulating  around  among  his  top- 
booted  guests  like  a  pastor  among  his  flock, 
and  you  wonder  that  such  a  fine-looking,  well- 
spoken  man  is  not  in  a  pulpit  instead  of  a  dive. 

But  this  is  some  of  Cheyenne  in  1872  to  1875. 
Go  to  Cheyenne  today — and  what  do  you  find? 
Nothing  like  this,  that's  certain.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  you  will  round  up  more  than  a  handful 
of  men  who  remember  there  ever  was  such  a 
place  as  Allen's  "Gold  Room"  or  the  Mc- 
Daniels' Variety,   or    even    Tim    Dyer's    Tin 


118  The  Pi-airie  Schooner 

Restaurant — tin  becanse  the  plates  and  cups 
were  tin  when  the  big  place  was  first  opened. 
But  see  Cheyenne  today.  There  isn't  a  city 
200  years  old  on  the  Atlantic  coast  that  has 
more  civilization,  a  finer  lot  of  railroad  men, 
more  culture  and  good  order  to  the  square 
yard. 

Cheyenne  had  a  bad  reputation,  but  it  soon 
reformed  when  the  natural  resources  of  Wy- 
oming began  to  be  developed,  and  today,  while 
M^e  who  pioneered  it  there  so  many  years  ago 
spoke  of  it  as  a  "desert  metropolis,"  are  wit- 
nessing every  little  while  either  in  agricultural 
or  horticultural  shows  its  progress  in  wheat- 
field  and  orchard. 


'he  Lost  Indian  at  Bedtick  Creek 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Lost  Indian  at  Bedtick  Creek. 

P[IS  Indian  was  lost — something  that  has 
rarely  happened.  No  Indian  could  use  a 
compass  if  he  had  one,  and  he  wouldn't  if  he 
could — not  the  real  Indian  of  the  days  of  Gen- 
eral Custer,  Buffalo  Bill  and  a  few  others.  In- 
dian instinct  beats  any  mechanical  contrivance 
man  has  invented  for  white  sailors,  hunters, 
explorers  and  lumber  cruisers. 

But  the  full-blood  of  this  story  was  lost  and 
was  bleating  like  a  sheep  away  from  its  flock, 
and  just  as  timid  and  gentle.  A  lost  Indian, 
and  a  proud,  high  cheek-boned,  breech-clouted, 
bronzed  specimen,  too ;  six  feet  tall  in  his  moc- 
casins— hungry,  unarmed,  footsore,  tribeless. 

He  came  into  the  camp  of  the  wagon  train 
at  Bedtick  Creek  not  far  from  the  site  of  the 
deserted  and  famous  overland  stage  station 
run  by  Jules  Slade,  whose  life  was  saved  by 
his  wife,  who  rode  200  miles  on  a  horse  from 
Julesburg  to  a  gold  camp  in  Montana  just  in 
time  to  stop  the  lynching  being  conducted  by 
the  Vigilantes. 

And  the  day  the  Lost  Indian  was  found  was 
Christmas,  a  time  when  every  man — plainsman 
and  mountaineer,  far  from  civilization  and  liv- 
ing in  the  open,  as  well  as  those  toasting  their 


122  The  Prairie  Schooner 

shins  at  comfortable  firesides  in  snng  homes  in 
"God's  country" — has  a  sense  of  something 
mysteriously  elevating  in  his  soul. 

Everyone  in  the  frost-bitten  bunch  of  over- 
land freighters  knew  his  program  for  the  day 
was  to  have  no  change  so  far  as  the  bill  of  fare 
of  bacon,  beans  and  venison  was  concerned, 
and  everyone  thought  it  was  pretty  good;  but 
there  was  to  be  no  Christmas  tree  or  happy 
children — no  church  services  or  anything  else 
— everyone  was  contented,  nevertheless,  and 
surely  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  day,  though  far 
out  of  reach  of  anything  that  would  give  the 
slightest  flavor  to  a  proper  celebration,  even 
informally. 

The  breakfast  had  been  disposed  of.  the  tin 
dishes  washed  and  plans  made  for  a  full  day's 
rest  for  man  and  beast,  for  it  was  also  Sunday, 
and  the  wagon  boss,  old  Ethrop,  while  loaded 
down  with  revolvers  and  bowie  knifes,  was  of 
a  religious  turn  and  was  known  as  "The  Par- 
son." 

Far  away  to  the  south,  across  a  rolling  plain, 
was  the  blue-white  outlines  of  Laramie  Peak, 
A  long  way  this  side,  according  to  the  eagle- 
eye  of  Farley,  driver  of  the  lead  team,  some- 
thing was  winding  a  crooked  course  toward 
camp.  It  wa^  a  mere  dark  object  reflected 
against  the  snow-covered  surface,  but  when 
viewed  through  a  field  glass  was  plainly  dis- 
cernible— it  was  a  man.  all  agreed :  but  with 


The  Prairie  Schooner  123 

the  glass  in  Farley's  hands  it  was  a  buck  In- 
dian. 

So  the  boys  watched  and  waited  for  an  hour, 
and  finally  the  Lost  Indian  Avas  within  hailing 
distance  and  stopped,  circled  and  began  to 
close  in.  Farley  Avaved  liim  to  come  on,  and 
as  insurance  of  friendliness  went  through  the 
ceremony  of  placing  a  rifle  in  its  sling  on  the 
side  of  a  prairie  schooner.  Then  the  Lost  In- 
dian came  forward  at  a  trot  and  landed  at  the 
camp-fire. 

Between  grunts,  motions  and  words  on  the 
part  of  the  Lost  Indian,  and  as  many  from 
several  plainsmen,  none  of  wliicli  seemed  to  be 
clearer  than  Hottentot,  this  was,  in  simple 
language,  the  story  told  by  the  Lost  Indian  at 
Bedtick  Creek : 

"Five  moons  ago,  while  at  AVhite  River, 
where  the  Great  Father  has  begun  to  issue  ra- 
tions of  beef  on  the  foot  to  every  head  of  a 
Sioux  tepee.  I  gave  the  Mountain  Fox  seven- 
teen beaver  pelts,  a  bale  of  buckskins,  twelve 
obsidian  arrow  points,  one  lame  calico  pony, 
a  pipestone  peace-pipe,  some  kinnickinnic  and 
an  iron  oven,  found  after  the  soldiers  left  a 
camp  at  Clear  Creek,  and  eleven  bone  buttons 
for  the  hand  of  his  second  oldest  daughter. 
This  was  all  of  my  fortune,  except  one  saddle 
pony,  a  pack  pony,  one  lodge-pole  tepee  and 
poles,  four  buffalo  robes,  a  coil  of  telegraph 
wire  [stolen  from  the  Overland],  several  hair- 
braided  halters,  a  lariat  and  my  private  store 
of  scalps,  none   of  which  I   took  myself,   but 


124  The  Prairie  Schooner 

which  had  been  inherited  from  my  father,  a 
sub-chief  known  as  the  Hawk,  a  brave  man 
whose  bones  are  now  dry  in  an  elevated  grave 
near  the  fast-running  creek  known  to  the 
whites  as  Ten,  but  which  in  Sioux  is  Wicka- 
chimminy.  This,  with  my  bows  and  arrows 
and  a  Spencer  rifle,  for  which  I  had  no  am- 
munition, with  my  moccasins,  a  breech-clout 
and  jerked  meat  to  last  one  moon,  was  all  I 
had — not  much,  but  enough — and  I  was  happy 
with  my  bride. 

"After  the  sun  had  risen  and  set  three 
times  Mountain  Fox  came  to  my  tepee  and 
said  I  must  give  him  still  another  horse,  two 
blankets  (which  I  did  not  have  and  could  not 
get),  and  which  he  said  I  had  promised. 

"In  our  Sioux  nation  we  never  kill — that  is, 
we  do  not  kill  Sioux.  No  Sioux  has  yet  killed 
a  Sioux,  and  few  Sioux  have  ever  called  an- 
other of  our  tribe  a  liar.  I  called  him  a  liar. 
He  made  a  sign  of  anger  and  a  loud  noise  of 
distress.  My  bride,  on  his  command,  left  the 
tepee  with  him,  telling  me  that  under  Sioux 
law,  which  I  knew  to  be  right,  that  the  con- 
tract had  not  been  filled  until  one  moon  had 
elapsed  and  all  members  of  both  families  had 
smoked  in  celebration.  What  did  I  do?  I 
rode  away  in  the  night  toward  the  tracks 
where  the  Iron  Horse  runs,  twenty  days  away, 
going  and  coming,  to  get  from  a  white  man's 
corral  a  horse  and  perhaps  the  blankets.  This 
was  while  the  grass  was  still  green. 

"I  found  the  horse  and  the  blankets  and  a 


The  Prairie  Schooner  125 

gun ;  also  food  in  cans.  But  I  found  in  a  large 
bottle  what  I  had  heard  of,  but  never  tasted 
before.  After  the  first  sun  had  set  I  stopped 
at  Dry  Canyon,  which  is  never  dry,  but  full 
of  roaring  water,  and  there  I  drank  nearly  all 
from  the  bottle.  What  I  did  then  I  only  re- 
member as  a  dream,  but  I  saw  in  my  dream 
my  bride  and  I  wept.  My  pony  and  the  horse 
I  found  in  the  white  man's  corral  at  the  trail 
of  the  Iron  Horse,  with  the  blankets  and  the 
food  in  cans,  and  I — Big  Jaw — waded  Dry 
Canyon  Creek,  which  I  say  was  wet,  for  near- 
ly a  day  and  left  no  trial.  I  drank  more  of 
the  white  man's  poison  and  then  camped  with- 
out a  fire. 

"When  the  next  sun  came  up  I  was  ill  and 
drank  lots  of  water.  Then  came  six  men  from 
the  corral  at  the  trail  of  the  Iron  Horse,  and 
they  bound  my  hands  with  small  chains,  tied 
me  to  my  pony  and  took  me  back  to  the  trail 
of  the  Iron  Horse,  where  I  was  kept  in  a  log 
house  with  iron  windows  until  one  night  it 
burned,  and  I  was  taken  out  by  the  white  man 
in  charge,  who,  three  moons  ago,  blindfolded 
me,  put  me  on  a  horse  and  took  me  to  another 
corral  on  the  trail  of  the  Iron  Horse  and 
locked  me  in  a  large  tepee  made  of  stone, 
where  they  fed  me  well  and  gave  me  medicine. 

"Then  I  was,  one  moon  ago,  put  to  work  in 
a  forest  to  chop  trees,  and  I  ran  away. 

"Have  you  seen  my  bride — she  of  the  hair 


120  The  Prairie  Schooner 

as  black  as  a  starless  night  and  teeth  as  white 
as  the  wing  of  a  dove? 

"Oh,  white  man,  tell  rae,  have  yon  seen  her? 
I  am  a  lost  sheep — the  trail  is  covered  to  my 
eyes,  with  which  I  have  wept  almost  constant- 
ly all  the  moons  I  have  been  away.  Have  you 
seen  her  I  seek?  I  am  hungry,  not  in  my 
stomach,  but  in  my  breast  and  in  my  head:  I 
must  feast  or  die  ! ' ' 

Then  he  wept  like  a  child. 

"Crazy,"  said  EaAvhide  Robinson. 

"As  a  loon,"  added  Parker,  the  night 
herder. 

"Give  him  a  pull  at  the  Parson's  bottle  in 
the  medicine  chest,"  suggested  the  Kid,  as  he 
gave  the  fire  a  stir  under  a  pot  of  bean  soup. 

"No,"  said  the  Parson,  as  he  rode  up  on  a 
mule  and  was  told  the  story — "no  liquor,  boys, 
Feed  him  up  and  we'll  let  him  trail  back  with 
us  to  Cheyenne  and  to  the  asylum.  Poor  cuss, 
he  loved  the  squaw  and  he's  clean  daffy,  but 
hasn't  a  bit  of  Injun  left  in  him." 

And  so  the  Lost  Indian,  with  a  broken  heart, 
brain  tortured,  went  back  to  the  asylum — a 
child  of  the  plains  who  bought  his  wife,  but 
loved  her  for  all  that.  For  the  Sioux,  while 
selling  their  daughters,  never  sold  them  unless 
tliere  Avas  real  evidence  of  true  love. 

And  Avhile  Big  Jaw  stole  to  make  good  his 
bargain,  wasn't  his  deed  an  act  of  old-time 
knighthood  after  all? 

^Moreover,  his  undoing  was  not  so  much  be- 
cause of  his  own  delinquency  as  it  was  that 


The  Prairie  Schooner  127 

of  the  white  man's  invention — whisky — that 
brought  about  his  downfall. 

A  thief,  yes;  a  red-skinned,  uncivilized  wild 
man  of  the  plains  and  the  mountains.  But  can 
we  classify  him  with  the  civilized  white  man 
who  commits  a  crime? 

If  the  Lost  Indian  did  not  recover  and  win 
his  bride  in  civilization's  regulation  way,  per- 
haps it  is  just  as  well ;  and  let  us  hope  he  is 
an  angel  in  the  Happy  Hunting  Ground. 


A  She-Bear  and  Her  Cub 


chaptp:r  xii. 

A  She-Bear  and  Her  Cub. 

BEFORE  my  feet  were  thoroughly  tough- 
ened— that  is  to  say,  when  I  was  still  to 
some  extent  a  tenderfoot — I  joined,  single- 
handed,  in  an  undertaking  AA'hich  had  more 
chances  for  failure  than  almost  anything  that 
can  be  imagined.  It  wasn't  a  trip  to  the  moon, 
neither  was  it  an  attempt  to  Avipe  out  the  then 
powerful  Sioux  nation,  but  it  was  worse  than 
either  of  these. 

On  Wagon-hound  creek,  one  summer  day, 
when  our  outfit  was  in  camp  for  several  hours, 
I  strolled  away  froni  camp  alone.  It  was  early 
summer,  probably  July,  and  everything  was 
green  and  fresh.  Three  miles  from  camp  I 
came  upon  signs  of  life — the  limb  of  a  wild 
plum  tree  broken  and  hanging  to  the  ground. 
The  first  impression  was  that  there  were 
prowling  Indians  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
grass  had  also  been  trampled.  The  plums  were 
only  half  ripe,  and  after  gathering  a  few,  I 
dropped  over  an  em]>ankment  into  the  creek 
bottom,  where  I  saw  a  large  track  in  the  soft 
silt;  it  was  almost  the  shape  of  a  human  hand. 
There  was  a  smaller  one  of  the  same  character. 
These  I  followed,  clutching  a  small  ''pop-gun"  of 
the  Derringer  variety.     After  turning   several 


132  The  Prairie  Schooner 

curves  of  the  creek  I  suddenly  came  upon  my 
quarry — a  big  she-bear  and  a  cub.  The  former 
snorted  and  made  for  me,  and,  sensibly  pocket- 
ing my  revolver.  I  lifted  myself  out  of  the 
creek  bottom  by  grasping  a  convenient  over- 
hanging root  of  a  tree ;  but  almost  simultane- 
ously the  she-bear  was  beside  me. 

Then  began  as  pretty  a  race  as  you  ever 
witnessed.     It  is  a  pity  none  saw  it. 

Fortunately  I  had  only  a  few  nights  before 
been  a  silent  listener  to  several  campfire  yarns 
of  old-timers,  one  of  which  contained  some  ad-, 
vice  about  a  man  who  finds  himself  in  the 
predicament  I  now  was  in.  Before  me  was  a 
bald  hill  rising  perhaps  200  or  300  feet,  covered 
with  sage  and  other  brush.  Up  I  flew.  My 
feet  Avere  like  Avings.  But  ^Irs.  Bear,  though 
heavy,  was  able  to  keep  within  ten  feet  of  my 
heels  until  I  reached  the  top.  Then  as  I  al- 
most felt  her  warm  breath  I  Avheeled  and  ran 
down  hill.  This  was  tactics  I  had  heard  at 
the  camp-fire  and  it  saved  me,  too,  for  Mrs. 
Bear,  being  set  up  heavier  behind  than  in 
front,  and  having  long  hind  legs  and  short 
front  ones,  was  obliged  to  come  down  slowly 
and  sideAvise  at  that. 

Her  cub  had  stayed  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill, 
Avhining,  and  as  I  reached  him  I  gave  him  a 
kick  in  the  jaAv  and  there  Avas  some  more  zig- 
zagging, fast  running  and  heart  palpitation, 
although  I  felt  somcAvhat  relieved  Avhen,  look- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  133 

iiig  over  my  shoulder.  I  saw  Mother  Bear  lick- 
ing her  cub's  face. 

Later  on  I  sneaked  into  camp  and  tried  to 
keep  my  secret ;  but  I  looked  and  acted  queer- 
ly,  a;id  finally  told  the  story.  In  ten  minutes 
five  of  us  were  on  the  way  to  the  site  of  ray 
encounter,  all  mounted. 

We  soon  discovered  Mrs.  Bear  and  her  cub, 
and  the  boss  insisted  that  I  should  have  the 
first  shot  at  her  with  a  Winchester.  I  took 
good  aim  and  fired,  but  saw  the  dirt  fly  a  rod 
behind  the  old  lady.  It  was  a  bad  miss.  Then 
"Sailor  Jack"  Walton  sent  a  bullet  into  her 
heart  and  the  rest  of  us  lariated  and  captured 
the  baby,  which  we  took  to  Fort  Laramie  and 
gave  to  an  army  officer's  wife. 


A  Kick  From  a  Playful  Bullock 
— and  a  Joke 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
A  Kick  from  a  Playful  Bullock — and  a  Joke. 

NEAR  Horse  Creek  lived  a  ranchman  of  the 
name  of  ]\reDonald,  a  pioneer,  and  I  be- 
lieve a  religious  and  perfectly  sane  and  honest 
Scotchman,  although  I  am  not  sure  of  his  na- 
tivity; however,  he  had  all  the  good  qualities 
of  that  race.  One  June  morning  T  joined  a 
bull  outfit  owned  by  him  and  drove  a  team 
attached  to  the  naked  gears  of  two  wagons 
into  the  virgin  parks  on  Laramie  Peak,  along 
the  streams  and  upon  the  sidehills  of  which 
grew  the  straightest  aspen  and  small  pine 
trees  in  all  the  territory.  No  ax  had  ever 
desecrated  this  beautiful  forest.  The  trip  was 
for  the  purpose  of  cutting  some  of  these  poles 
and  building,  while  on  the  mountain,  two 
dozen  hay  racks  upon  which  was  to  be  hauled 
to  an  army  post  the  contract  hay  cut  in  the 
wild  meadows.  T  was  still  something  of  a  ten- 
derfoot, for  I  knew  nothing  of  this  kind  of 
work,  and  I  soon  discovered  that  I  was  re- 
garded— much  to  my  chagrin — as  only  a  half- 
hand.  I  complained  to  other  drivers  when  Mc- 
Donald indicated  that  he  thought  me  a  burden 
because  I  had  to  learn  how  to  use  an  adz  and 
because  I  had  mishandled  nn^  team  on  a  wind- 
ine  now  trail  we  broke  in  the  hills. 


138  The  Prairie  Schooner 

One  of  the  bulls,  just  before  leaving  the 
plain  below,  had  playfully  reached  me  with 
one  of  his  heavy  but  unshod  hind  hoofs  and 
keeled  me  over  into  a  bed  of  pricklj^  pears. 
For  hours  a  kindl}^  1)ulhvhacker  helped  me 
pluck  the  sharp  and  brittle  brads  from  my 
back.  McDonald  took  a  dislike  to  me,  and 
naturally  I  lost  any  admiration  I  might  have 
had  for  hira.  And  here  is  where  I  made  a 
fatal  mistake.  I  shouldn't  have  noticed  it;  in- 
stead I  took  every  opportunity  offered  to  an- 
noy him.  One  day,  while  in  camp,  at  the  in- 
stigation of  an  older  man,  I  remarked  that  we 
were  to  have  a  change  for  supper. 

"And  what  will  it  be?"  queried  McDonald. 

"Bacon  and  coffee,"  T  replied. 

"But  we  had  that  for  breakfast,"  said  he. 

"I  know,"  said  I,  "but  it  Avas  coffee  and 
l)aeon — noAv  it's  bacon  and  coffee!" 

The  fact  is  there  was  no  game  in  the  hills, 
at  least  Ave  got  none.  I  knew  McDonald 
wouldn't  like  the  joke,  but  I  never  believed  it 
would  be  taken  as  a  personal  affront.  He  was, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  bountiful  provider,  but 
expected  to  find  plenty  of  grouse,  venison,  etc., 
on  the  trip  and  had  therefore  provided  only 
flour,  bacon  and  coffee. 

I  met  IMcDonald  fifteen  years  later  in  the 
^Middle  West  on  a  railroad  train.  He  remem- 
bered me  and  hadn't  forgotten  the  wound  I 
inflicted  by  mv  alleged  Avit,  for  he  said: 


Tlie  Prairie  Schooner  139 

"Yes,  I  remember  you,  and  you  were  a  poor 
stick!" 

I  sincerely  hope  the  last  twenty-five  and 
more  years  has  softened  his  heart — if  he  lives — 
as  it  has  softened  mine,  for  I  have  only  kindly 
thoughts  of  him.  and  even  hold  no  grudge 
against  the  bull  that  reduced  my  efficiency  by 
the  playful  caress  he  gave  me  with  his  hoof. 

^  •JP  "tF  w 

If  you  have  ever  tried  to  hoof  it  up  a  wild 
mountain  stream  running  through  towering 
cliffs  of  shale,  without  a  trail,  you  can  well 
imagine  the  task  a  bull-train  outfit  Avould  have 
in  working  its  way  through  the  same  maze  of 
trees,  rocks  and  rushing  waters,  winding  from 
bluff  to  bluff.  But  these  tasks  were  common 
undertakings  for  the  men  engaged  in  the  busi- 
ness of  freighting.  "Corduroy"  bridges  con- 
sisting of  gravel  and  poles  had  to  be  built, 
trees  chopped  down,  fallen  and  dead  trees  re- 
moved, brush  cleared  away  or  used  at  the  ford- 
ing places. 

A  pioneer  trip  of  this  kind,  and  a  fair  ex- 
ample, was  one  which  took  our  outfit  from 
Cheyenne  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Cache  de  la 
t*oudre  river  in  what  was  known  as  the  North 
Park,  some  years  before  Centennial  Peak,  one 
of  Colorado's  principal  mountains,  was  of 
enough  consequence  to  be  christened  by  the 
government. 

Cheyenne  was  passing  from  the  camp  to  the 
substantial  tow^n  stage  and  lumber  was  need- 
ed for  building  purposes.     The  North  and  Mid- 


140  The  Prairie  Schooner 

die  Park  regions  were  virgin  forests,  nntouched 
by  the  woodman's  axe,  and  the  earth  and  its 
precious  store  of  gold  hardly  scratched  by 
prospectors.  There  were  no  mines,  no  ranch- 
men, nothing  but  nature  undisturbed ;  lakes 
of  sweet,  cold  water,  groves  of  white  pines  and 
other  trees,  wild  and  untenanted  except  by 
blacktail  deer,  ])ear,  cougar  and  other  animals. 
The  Greeley  colony,  however,  had  been  estab- 
lished many  miles  to  the  east  in  the  valley  of 
the  Poudre.  This  was  the  first  great  American 
irrigating  project  and  a  few  settlers  had  begun 
to  till  the  soil. 

Beyond  Fort  Collins  and  Liverinore  the  coun- 
try was  as  new  as  an  unexplored  country 
could  be.  Trout  leaped  at  play  along  the  nar- 
roAv  but  fast-running  streams,  and  if  a  sports- 
man had  ever  cast  his  lines  in  these  places'  he 
must  have  been  a  red  man  or  some  daring 
white  hunter  who  preceded  the  stage  of  de- 
velopment now  under  way  and  who  left  no 
record  of  his  doings. 

It  took  several  weeks  to  chop  and  dig  a  road 
through  this  wnlderness  and  set  up  in  an  open 
space  a  couple  of  sawmill  outfits  we  had  with 
us.  Then  it  required  a  couple  of  months  of 
chopping,  hauling  and  sawing  of  logs,  and  load- 
ing of  the  green  and  heavy  lumber  upon  our 
]\Eurphy  -wagons.  The  lumber  was  unloaded  in 
Cheyenne  a  month  later;  some  of  it  was  quite 
dry.  but  in  much  smaller  quantities  than  would 


The  Prairie  Schooner  141 

have  been  delivered  had  the  owners  been  will- 
ing jto  M^ait  for  it  to  diy  where  cut. 

But  Cheyenne  was  in  a  hurry,  and  the  boom- 
ers couldn't  Avait.  consequently  many  of  the 
green  joists  in  the  new  buildings  shrunk  and 
there  were  several  collapses. 


The  Indian  and  the  Trousers 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Indian  and  the  Trousers. 

WHKN  the  first  clothing  was  issued  to  the 
Sioux  and  Cheyenne  Indians  at  Red 
Cloud  Agency  the  scene  was  better  than  a 
circus.  If  I  am  not  mistaken  Carl  Schurz  wan 
secretary  of  the  interior,  and  after  a  confer- 
ence with  some  of  the  big  chiefs  it  was  de- 
cided to  attempt  to  abolish  the  breech-clout. 
The  "Great  Father"  at  Washington,  repre- 
sented by  members  of  Congress  and  some  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Quakers  and  others,  discov- 
ered that  Uncle  Sam  had  a  warehouse  full  of 
discarded  or  out  of  date  army  coats  and  trou- 
sers, and  it  was  decided  to  give  these  to  cer- 
tain tribes  of  Indians  as  part  payment  for 
lands  that  were  needed  for  white  settlement. 

The  Indians  were  gathered  by  hundreds 
from  far  and  wide  the  day  of  issue  at  Red 
Cloud,  and  Agent  McGillicuddy  addressed 
them  in  their  own  tongue,  telling  them  the 
light  blue  trousers  and  coats  were  the  same 
liind  worn  by  the  brave  men  who  fought  heroic 
battles!  for  their  Great  Father,  His  words 
were  received  in  silence,  and  after  he  had  fin- 
ished several  chiefs  held  a  pow-wow,  after 
Avhich  one  of  their  number  presented  himself 
at  the  delivery  window  of  the  big  warehouse 


14G  The  Prairie  Schooner 

and  received  a  coat  and  a  pair  of  trousers. 
Several  white  men  helped  him  to  adjust  the 
trousers  and  coat,  and  when  he  was  fully 
rigged  he  started  to  walk  toward  his  group 
of  red-skinned  and  breech-clouted  compan- 
ions. 

As  though  the  stage  had  been  set  and  every 
player  had  learned  his  part,  the  show  began. 
The  up  to  this  time  silent  Indians  jumped  into 
the  air  and  made  a  demonstration  of  guying 
that  would  be  a  credit  to  an}^  baseball  crowd 
that  ever  sat  in  the  bleachers  at  the  Polo 
Grounds.  They  danced  and  cavorted,  they 
yelled  and  keeled  over,  and  laughed.  The 
squaws  and  papooses  thought  it  the  greatest 
joke,  and  participated  in  the  hilarity.  Finally 
the  buck  who  wore  the  first  suit  managed  to 
get  it  ofif  and  resumed  his  breech-clout. 

This  first  attempt  was  a  failure ;  but  Mr. 
McGillicuddy  was  a  resourceful  man  and  was 
implicitly  trusted,  especially  by  the  leading 
men  of  the  Sioux  nation,  and  he  finally  tried 
another  plan  which  after  a  j^ear  or  two  suc- 
ceeded to  some  extent.  He  engaged  several 
bucks  to  help  him  at  the  agency  warehouse, 
paying  them  in  extra  amounts  of  sugar,  to- 
bacco and  bacon,  but  insisted  that  while  they 
were  on  duty  they  must  be  dressed  in  the 
white  man's  garb,  and  finally  he  had  a  large 
number  of  bucks  who  were  willing  to  forego 
the  jibes  of  their  friends  for  the  extra  allow- 
ances. 

Sooner  or  later  these  Indians  began  to  circu- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  147 

late  around  among  others  of  tlie  tribe  in  a 
lordly  manner,  and  in  the  end  it  was  not  nec- 
essary to  bribe  anj^  of  them,  except  the  young- 
sters of  Sitting  Bull's  band,  to  wear  clothing. 

At  first  the  Indians  insisted  in  cutting  out 
entirely  the  seat  of  the  trousers. 

"Wlien  the  first  beef  on  the  hoof  was  issued 
at  Red  Cloud,  a  four-year-old  steer  was  al- 
lotted twice  a  month  to  the  head  of  each  tepee 
in  the  tribe.  It  was  "cut  out"  from  the  herd 
by  a  cowboy  and  turned  over  to  the  Indians 
forming  the  tepee,  or  family,  to  do  with  as 
they  pleased,  and  what  they  pleased  to  do 
would  not  have  the  approval  of  a  humane  so- 
ciety. 

Always  the  animal  was  as  wild  as  a  buffalo, 
and  if  he  did  not  immediately  start  a  small 
stampede  on  his  own  account  a  few  blood- 
curdling yells  from  the  Indians  did  the  busi- 
ness. Selecting  the  easiest  path  of  escape  the 
frightened  steer  made  a  dash,  followed  by  the 
bucks  on  their  saddleless  ponies.  Some  of  the 
Indians  had  long  spears,  all  had  bows  and  ar- 
rows, and  some  had  guns,  ranging  in  make 
from  an  old  Spencer  rifle  to  a  modern  Win- 
chester, although  there  were  few  of  these.  Most 
of  their  weapons  were  bows  and  arrows  and 
spears.  The  latter  were  thrown  with  great 
accuracy,  and  fatal  thrusts  were  never  made 
until  the  steer  had  become  exhausted.  The  ar- 
rows were  also  used,  perhaps  for  an  hour,  as 
weapons  of  torture  and  shot  with  no  other  pur- 
pose into  the  fleshy  part  of  the  steer  than  to  in- 


148  The  Prairie  Schooner 

crease  his  speed.  The  Indians  could  have 
killed  their  steer  at  any  time  by  a  shot  placed 
under  the  shoulder.  But  the  idea  was  to  tor- 
ture the  beast  and  perhaps  encourage  him  to 
turn  and  fight  for  his  life,  which  he  often  did 
when  surrounded  in  a  ravine.  This  was  In- 
dian sport,  and  was  indulged  in  for  some  time 
before  the  Agency  authorities  required  the  gov- 
ernment's wards  to  use  civilized  methods. 

Usually  when  a  steer  had  been  chased  up 
hill  and  doAvn  vale  for  an  hour,  or  until  it  was 
worn  out,  the  Indians  planned  to  round  up  the 
chase  close  to  their  tepee  where  a  final  shot 
with  arrow  or  bullet  put  an  end  to  the  ani- 
mal's misery.  Then  the  squaAvs  swarmed  about 
the  carcass  with  their  skinning  knives.  The 
hide,  always  badly  damaged  by  the  spears  and 
arrows,  was  removed  in  a  workmanlike  man- 
ner and  carefully  put  away  for  tanning  later 
on.  The  flesh  of  the  steer  was  taken  away  and 
the  feast  began  in  a  few  minutes.  Much  of 
the  meat  was  dried  or  "jerked." 


There's  a  Reason;  This  Is  It! 
Conclusion 


CHAPTER  XV 
There's  a  Reason:    This  Is  It! — Conclusion. 

AND  now  let  me  answer  questions  that  have 
no  doubt  arisen  in  the  minds  of  the  read- 
ers who  have  waded  through  these  chapters. 
**Why  isn't  this  record  presented  in  the  regu- 
lation way — as  a  novel  with  a  love  story  run- 
ning through  it;"  or,  "What  is  the  moral?" 

Let  me  ask  such  readers  to  follow  me  a  little 
farther. 

On  March  22d,  1873,  a  description  of  a  cer- 
tain boy  who  left  his  Wisconsin  home  to  buf- 
fet with  the  world  on  his  own  responsibility 
would  have  read  as  follows : 

Age,  16  years,  6  mos.  and  7  days.  Weight  109 
pounds;  black  hair,  black  eyes,  smooth,  pale  face; 
well  dressed;  had,  after  paying  for  one  handbag, 
a  Derringer  revolver  (pop-gun)  and  a  few  knick- 
knacks,  $85.00  in  cash  (a  large  sum  for  a  youth 
of  his  age  in  those  days). 

Carried  trip  pass  from  Milwaukee  to  Council 
Bluffs,  Iowa,  via  the  Chicago  &  Northwestern  Rail- 
way, personally  given  to  him  by  Marvin  Hughitt, 
then  superintendent;  also  letter  of  introduction 
from  E.  J.  Cuyler,  to  S.  H.  H.  Clark,  general  man- 
ager of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  at  Omaha,  rec- 
ommending him  as  a  worthy  boy  looking  for  a 
railroad  office  job,  also  requesting  transportation 
favors. 

This  description  takes  no  account  of  a  deep- 
seated  cough,  occasional  flashes  of  red  in  the 
pale  face,  and  a  fear  expressed  by  friends  that 


152  The  Prairie  Schooner 

he  was  taking  a  desperate  means  of  escaping 
the  fate  that  had  overtaken  his  dear  mother 
but  four  months  previously.  It  takes  no  ac- 
count of  his  life  up  to  the  time  of  his  depar- 
ture on  the  long  journey,  not  yet  ended; 
though  in  the  natural  order  of  worldly  things, 
the  day  is  near  at  hand.  I  might  add  that  he 
had  been  a  "call  boy"  at  a  big  railroad  ter- 
minal, had  advanced  to  a  desk  as  a  way-bill 
clerk,  and  when  advised  to  seek  a  dry  climate 
and  there  live  out-of-doors,  was  earning  a 
man's  wage. 

We  Avill  pass  over  briefly  an  encounter  with 
one  of  the  best  men  that  ever  lived — S.  H,  H. 
Clark — in  his  office  at  Omaha.  When  asked 
for  a  pass  to  Shemian,  Wyoming,  he  said 
gruffly : 

"Haven't  you  got  any  money?" 

This  was  the  reply : 

"Yes,  sir,  and  I'll  pay  my  fare,  too,  if  you 
don't  want  to  give  me  a  pass." 

''^Well, "  he  said,  turning  to  look  out  of  a 
window,  "maybe  I'll  give  you  an  order  for  a 
half-fare   ticket. ' '   which    brought   forth    this : 

"I  don't  want  to  be  impolite,  Mr.  Clark,  be- 
cause you  are  a  friend  of  good  friends  of 
mine — Mr.  Hughitt  and  Mr.  Cuyler — but  I  must 
say  you  don 't  know  me  as  well  as  you  might — I  'm 
no  half- fare  fellow.    Goodbye." 

And  then  Mr.  Clark  laughed,  and  said  he 
was  not  in  earnest  and  gave  the  pass  freely 
and  willingly. 

There  was  a  nice  chat  after  that  between 


The  Prairie  Schooner  153 

the  pale-faced  youth  and  the  big  railroader, 
during  which  The  Boy  discovered  that  Mr. 
Clark  liked  his  nerve  but  questioned  his  phys- 
ical ability  to  stand  the  rough  knocks  that 
were  coming. 

Later,  after  a  season  in  a  division  railroad 
office  The  Boy,  carried  away  with  the  spirit 
of  adventure  that  was  everywhere  about  him, 
and  carrying  out  a  plan  he  had  made  to  live 
in  the  open,  went  to  Cheyenne,  signed  up  with 
a  bull-train,  and  began  the  life  of  out-of-doors. 
The  "train"  was  loaded  and  ready  to  leave 
Oarap  Carlin,  at  Fort  Russell,  for  Fort  Laramie 
on  the  North  Platte,  but  it  was  for  a  while 
impossible  to  employ  men  enough  to  drive  the 
teams.  Ttiere  had  been  an  outbreak  among 
the  Sioux,  and  things  looked  dark  when  The 
Boy  asked  for  a  job  driving  bulls ;  and  when 
he  was  hired  by  Xate  Williams,  the  Missou- 
rian  wagon  boss,  it  was  almost  a  joke  to  Nate, 
who  said  afterward  that  he  took  one  chance  in 
a  million  when  he  employed  The  Boy  and 
took  him  to  camp.  Both  The  Boy  and  Nate 
won  on  the  long  shot. 

A  year  later  The  Boy  was  driving  a  lead 
team,  looked  after  the  manifests,  kept  the  ac- 
counts, and  shirked  no  duty,  fair  weather  or 
foul. 

All  this  time  the  pale  and  flushed  cheeks 
were  giving  place  to  bronze,  the  thin  arms  and 
skinny  legs  were  toughening  and  filling  out. 


154  The  Prairie  Schooner 

and  the  cough  had  disappeared — weight  after 
first  year,  155. 

Before  leaving  Camp  Carlin  on  this  first 
trip  The  Boy  had  time  to  write  home  and  re- 
ceive a  reply.  lie  told  a  relative  what  he  had 
done,  and  the  reply  was  a  stinging  rebuke  and 
almost  a  final  farewell,  for  the  relative  said 
nothing  good  could  possibly  result  from  quit- 
ting a  job  with  a  railroad  paying  $100  a  month 
and  taking  one  as  a  teamster  at  the  same  fig- 
ure— ' '  and  you  nothing  but  a  sickly  boy. ' '  But 
the  relative  was  wrong,  although  excusable. 

And  now,  after  all  the  evidence  is  in,  we  find 
that  the  "sickW"  youngster  is  still  in  the  land 
of  the  living,  past  three  score  years,  and  with 
some  prospects  of  another  score ! 

The  letter  left  a  sore  spot,  and  The  Boy  fool- 
ishly decided  that  he  was  cut  ofi:'.  So  he  did 
not  write  again  for  nearly  two  years. 

The  middle  of  the  second  winter  foimd  him 
at  Fort  Fetterman,  living  in  a  dug-out  in  the 
embankment  of  a  creek  bottom,  waiting  for 
the  springtime  when  he  could  again  use  his 
stout  lungs  in  shouting  at  his  bulls,  but  his 
strong  arms  were  not  idle  the  while,  for  he 
chopped  Cottonwood,  box  elder  and  pine  logs 
for  the  Fetterman  commissary. 

In  those  days  there  was  naught  but  military 
law,  and  the  civilians  were  under  more  or  less 
surveillance,  and  it  was  customary  for  them 
to  report  at  given  periods  to  the  sergeant  who 
sat  in  the  adjutant's  adobe  office  in  the  fort. 

On  one  of  those  occasions  The  Boy's  atten- 


The  Prairie  Schooner  155 

tion  was  directed  to  a  bulletin  board  upon 
which  was  tacked  a  card  candying  the  caption 
in  big  black  types: 

"INFORMATION  WANTED" 

Under  this  was  The  Boy's  name,  a  detailed 
description  of  him  when  he  left  Cheyenne, 
and  the  statement  that  "anyone  knowing  his 
whereabouts  will  confer  a  favor  upon  his  anx- 
ious father  and  sister  and  receive  a  reward  if 
word  is  sent  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  a  friend 
of  the  family  at  Sherman,  Wyoming  Territory," 
to  whom  an  appeal  had  been  made.  It  was 
stated  in  the  notice  that  he  "weighs  about  100 
pounds,  has  black  hair,  black  eyes,  and  is  pale 
and  sickly." 

At  this  time  The  Boy  weighed  nearly  170, 
was  brown  as  a  berry,  had  muscles  of  an  ath- 
lete, and  in  no  wise  resembled  the  description. 
He  had  no  difficulty  in  convincing  the  sergeant 
that  while  the  name  was  similar  to  his  own  it 
evidently  was  the  description  of  a  tenderfoot, 
and  he  was  no  tenderfoot — not  then. 

If  I  could  pay  any  greater  tribute  than  this 
to  life  in  the  open  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  there 
were  a  possible  love  story  in  this  record  I 
would  ignore  it  because,  while  it  might  entertain 
and  please  some  tastes,  it  would  not  answer  the 
main  purpose  of  these  tales,  namely: 

To  demonstrate  that  as  long  as  there  is  life 
there  is  hope,  especially  if  the  spark  of  life  is 
properly  fanned  in  a  salubrious,  glorious  and 
vigorous  climate. 


156  The  Prairie  Schooner 

"As  long  as  there  is  life  there  is  hope!" 
But  after  all  is  it  not  truer  to  say  "As  long  as 
there  is  hope  there  is  life?" 

Hope  is  the  centerpiece  of  the  familiar  trio — 
Faith,  Hope  and  Charity — and  not  the  least  one 
of  these  virtvies.  It  is  practical  to  be  hopeful 
and  to  order  our  lives  in  the  spirit  of  hopeful- 
ness ;  the  world  will  be  better  for  our  hopeful- 
ness, especially  in  these  depressing  times.  More- 
over, it  is  a  Christian  duty  to  be  hopeful. 

"Hope,"  says  the  Rev.  Julian  K.  Smyth,  head 
of  the  Swedenborgian  church  in  the  United 
States,  "is  an  affection  of  the  will,  and  the  will 
is  ever  in  the  desire  to  act;  thus  hope  is  not 
only  a  lively  virtue,  but  a  heroic  and  even  a 
practical  one." 

It  is  a  good  rule  of  life  never  to  be  discour- 
aged no  matter  what  the  misfortune,  disappoint- 
ment or  mistake.  Life  will  have  been  a  success 
to  one  who  lives  in  hopefulness,  for  life  will  have 
been  lived  happily  through  many  human  failures 
and  errors.  Life  in  the  world  of  the  flesh  is  n 
battle  which,  if  well  fought — if  we  have  faith 
in  the  Divine  Providence — means  a  victory  over 
what  we  call  Death,  for  Death  is  in  truth  not 
the  End,  but  the— 

BEGINNING. 


3   1205  00308  8182 


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